Google just released the first stable version of mod_pagespeed, the company’sopen-source module for Apache that can automatically optimize your web pages to improve download and rendering speeds. With this release, Google is declaring this tool ready for broader adoption, though it’s worth noting that a number of large hosting providers like DreamHost, Go Daddy and content delivery network EdgeCast have already been using it in production for quite a while now.
“mod_pagespeed” speeds up your site and reduces page load time. This open-source Apache HTTP server module automatically applies web performance best practices to pages, and associated assets (CSS, JavaScript, images) without requiring that you modify your existing content or workflow.
FEATURES:-
1. Automatic website and asset optimization
2. Latest web optimization techniques
3. 40+ configurable optimization filters
4. Free, open-source, and frequently updated
5. Deployed by individual sites, hosting providers, CDN’s
How does mod_pagespeed speed up web-sites?
“mod_pagespeed” improves web page latency and bandwidth usage by changing the resources on that web page to implement web performance best practices. Each optimization is implemented as a custom filter in mod_pagespeed, which are executed when the Apache HTTP server serves the website assets. Some filters simply alter the HTML content, and other filters change references to CSS, JavaScript, or images to point to more optimized versions.
“mod_pagespeed” implements custom optimization strategies for each type of asset referenced by the website, to make them smaller, reduce the loading time, and extend the cache lifetime of each asset. These optimizations include combining and minifying JavaScript and CSS files, inlining small resources, and others. mod_pagespeed also dynamically optimizes images by removing unused meta-data from each file, resizing the images to specified dimensions, and re-encoding images to be served in the most efficient format available to the user.
“mod_pagespeed” ships with a set of core filters designed to safely optimize the content of your site without affecting the look or behavior of your site. In addition, it provides a number of more advanced filters which can be turned on by the site owner to gain higher performance improvements.
“mod_pagespeed” can be deployed and customized for individual web sites, as well as being used by large hosting providers and CDN’s to help their users improve performance of their sites, lower the latency of their pages, and decrease bandwidth usage.
Installing mod_pagespeed on CentOS (cPanel/WHM)
- root@server1# cd /usr/src
- root@server1[/usr/src]# mkdir mod_pagespeed/
- root@server1[/usr/src]# cd mod_pagespeed
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/dl/linux/direct/mod-pagespeed-beta_current_x86_64.rpm
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# rpm2cpio mod-pagespeed-beta_current_x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# cp usr/lib/httpd/modules/mod_pagespeed.so /usr/local/apache/modules
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# chmod 755 /usr/local/apache/modules/mod_pagespeed.so
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# mkdir -p /var/mod_pagespeed/{cache,files} —–> Create pagespeed directories.
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# chown nobody:nobody /var/mod_pagespeed/*
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# /usr/local/apache/bin/apxs -c -i /home/cpeasyapache/src/httpd-2.2.22/modules/filters/mod_deflate.c —-> Enable mod_deflate (required for mod_pagespeed)
- root@server1[/usr/src/mod_pagespeed]# vim /usr/local/apache/conf/pagespeed.conf —>edit the mod_pagespeed configuration file
In this file include
1. LoadModule pagespeed_module modules/mod_pagespeed.so
2. LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
3. ModPagespeedFileCachePath “/var/mod_pagespeed/cache/”
4. ModPagespeedGeneratedFilePrefix “/var/mod_pagespeed/files/”
And then open /usr/local/apache/conf/includes/pre_main_global.conf and add:
Include conf/pagespeed.conf
# Rebuild Apache config and restart apache.
/scripts/buildhttpdconf
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
Once your web server fires up, it’ll be mod_pagespeed-enabled.
You can verify it by using any web-page test tool. Here I am using Pingdom tool. I have share the screenshots of with and without mod_pagespeed module.
Website without mod_pagespeed module
Website with mod_pagespeed module
