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Since website sizes are getting bigger, improving website speed has always been a concern. The size of the website was 1.1 MB in 2012, and is now 2.07 MB. It is good to know that we have fast internet, but slow internet users will end up waiting. It remains to be seen, however, whether we can keep websites fast despite larger web sizes? That’s where gzip comes in.
Raise your hand if you agree with website performance depending on the size of all the files that browsers need to download. Fortunately, we no longer have to use sluggish websites as gzip will compress the data and increase the speed of the site.
Cut to the chase! According to recent research, gzip may reduce initial page load times by up to 90 percent. Furthermore, if our website loads faster we will be able to optimize it, which will increase website traffic and sales.
What is Gzip Compression?
In general, compression refers to reducing the actual file size by reducing the file data. Gzip compression works in the same way since it compresses and decompresses files in a short time.
Gzip can be used to compress any type of file, from plain text to Java, CSS, and media files. Yet you know that being perfect may be a lie; it applies to everyone and everything. In short, Gzip is generally good, but there’s still something missing. It doesn’t make sense to focus on what Gzip cannot do when we should be talking about what it can do.
Gzip has been used for over 20 years and is no wonder the internet uses it so much because it can be encoded and decoded quickly, while retaining small files. Ultimately, it is a trusted, widely-used technique among individuals and businesses.
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Does Gzip compress data well?
We have just said that being perfect is a lie, so when reviews are given, there will be mixed answers. If we talk about Gzip’s compression capabilities, then it’s definitely worth using, but some people argue that it’s not worth it to compress files smaller than 5KB or 10KB.
There are many reasons why reducing the file size is important and one of them obviously is web performance. It is no longer a secret that larger files will takes up a more space result in more bandwidth when user access it.
As a result, you will not only incur more costs, but your website will also load slower. As a result, it has a severe impact on user experience and search engine rankings, which are the most important factors. The solution to this problem is to use Gzip, which compresses data well and even quickly.
As a matter of fact, you can reduce the CPU usage on the server by enhancing the Gzipped content size threshold. Furthermore, GooglePageSpeed tool offers advice that you should Gzip compress everything. So no matter what types or sizes of files you have, you won’t have to worry about compression with Gzip.
How Gzip Compression Can Improve Web Performance?
First, the GZIP compressor deduplicates the raw data by using the LZ77 algorithm. Essentially, this algorithm is used to find repeating patterns in a small section of raw data (a sliding window). Gzip compresses web content in two ways: dynamically and statically.
Dynamic compression occurs when a user requests a file to be compressed, and is the default approach for most web servers. It is ideal for those who change their content frequently. Statistic compression compresses files in advance and delivers precompressed versions when a file is requested. In this, you can compress files that don’t change frequently such as JavaScript and CSS.
Here we will talk about why Gzip can be such a valuable tool for your website performance and why it might be a good addition to it.
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Compress files to deliver fast experience
In any case, the compression ratio is determined by the content of the file or file you are compressing. According to our discussion above, Gzip has the best data compression ratio, allowing you to compress JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files up to 90%. Here is the first reason why you should use gzip for the performance of your site, the faster your site loads, the more visitors you will receive, ultimately resulting in more sales.
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Encoding and decoding in a matter of seconds
For compressing and decompressing data, GZIP comes out on top. The technology is highly advantageous for on-demand compression in HTTP servers and other data streams. Your data are safe since you are encoding them and they are smaller as well. This is how you should be able to free up some space on your storage device. Therefore, it is now no longer a myth that Gzip can encrypt and decrypt files in seconds, so here it is, how to save time compressing and decompressing files and how it can enhance the performance of your website.
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Optimize website for page speed
One of the greatest benefits of using Gzip to improve website performance is its ability to compress files. As noted above, Gzip makes websites faster and more accessible by compressing and decompressing them. In terms of SEO and ranking web pages, we know that page speed is important.
There is no denial of the fact that having a website without optimization will decrease loading times and ruin the credibility of a site. Furthermore, a slow-loading web page leads to a bad user experience and a high bounce rate.
When it comes to running your website, your users will not tolerate slow performance. Therefore, if your site speed is slow, chances are high that people will click away or never visit you again. With Gzip, you can solve all the problems by optimizing your page speed and making sure that it works as expected.
Conclusion
You can see that enabling Gzip compression is one of the easiest ways to improve your website’s performance. To reap the benefits of your website, you will need to set it up correctly. As we mentioned above, Gzip compression helps deliver seamless user experience and boost sales.
Do you want to know how Gzip compression can benefit your site? M-connect Media can help you. Using our certified Magento developers, you can enable Gzip and speed up your Magento 2 store. Get in touch with us for more information.
