Improve Site Transfer Speed by Enabling File Caching [ ^ ]

The htaccess Guru over at askapache.com provides this excellent article explaining how to dramatically improve your site’s transfer speed by enabling file caching. Using time in seconds* to indicate the duration for which cached content should endure, we may generalize the htaccess rules as such (edit file types and time value to suit your needs):

# cache images and flash content for one month

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000"

# cache text, css, and javascript files for one week

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800"

# cache html and htm files for one day

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=43200"

# implement minimal caching during site development

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=5"

# explicitly disable caching for scripts and other dynamic files

Header unset Cache-Control

# alternate method for file caching
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault A604800 # 1 week
ExpiresByType image/x-icon A2419200 # 1 month
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A2419200 # 1 month
ExpiresByType text/css A2419200 # 1 month
ExpiresByType text/html A300 # 5 minutes
# disable caching for scripts and other dynamic files

ExpiresActive Off

• * Convert common time intervals into seconds:
• 300 = 5 minutes
• 2700 = 45 minutes
• 3600 = 1 hour
• 54000 = 15 hours
• 86400 = 1 day
• 518400 = 6 days
• 604800 = 1 week
• 1814400 = 3 weeks
• 2419200 = 1 month
• 26611200 = 11 months
• 29030400 = 1 year = never expires

Set the default language and character set [ ^ ]

Here is an easy way to set the default language for pages served by your server (edit the language to suit your needs):

# set the default language
DefaultLanguage en-US

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