HTTP Header Compression
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About HTTP Header Compression
What is HTTP header compression?
The HTTP header compression is an effective and very simple way to improve the speed of your website by saving bandwidth. This is the era of high-speed internet and nobody wants to wait for a long time to load a webpage. There is a tough competition among online businesses which is the main reason by countless websites are coming to existence every day.
If your website is slow to respond, the user will immediately shift to another one. The modern web content is very entertaining but it is important to make coordination between its speed and data. For this purpose, you need a dedicated tool that can reduce the size of a webpage by compressing. Currently, there are two most popular tools available for header compression i.e.
- Gzip
- Deflator
How does the Http header compression work?
If you want to understand the working of HTTP header compression, it is important to know the process of how the server responds back to a browser. Here is a complete process in detail to understand.
- The user request for a particular website URL from the web browser. The request from web browser contains around 1-2 kb of data only.
- The web server receives it and searches for your desired website throughout the world. After finding, it sends the zip file to server response.
- The content is encoded in Gzip format that reduces its size more than 80%.
- It further sends the encoded data of web page to your browser. The browser decompresses this data and display on your screen.
This is how the compression & decompression process works during the wen browsing. Here web server compresses the file whereas browser decompresses it.
HTTP Header Compression Advantages for Your Website Speed
There was a time when websites were made with minimalistic HTML templates without containing too many multimedia materials. However, the time is changing now because the competition has become more intense to stay ahead in the digital marketing of businesses.
For attracting potential customers, it becomes important to embellish your website with high-resolution, images video links, audios, and animated texts. Adding such kind of material is not a difficult thing even it turns out the website more productive.
The only drawback is time taken for loading because the browser and server need to process huge data. Therefore, it is important to compress the entire data HTTP header compression process.
Data compression has become very common nowadays because the size of data is gaining its volume day by day. It is essential to have a tool that can reduce the size of user data and store it on physical memory or server while occupying much lesser space.
When it comes to the server, HTTP compression takes place to compress the data before transmitting it to the client. Scroll down to gain more information about HTTP header compression and its significance to a website.
Process that server follow to bring the desired information on your screen
Whenever you feel the need for some information, a search engine or Web dress is used to assess it. The browser sends your request to the web server, the server finds out information by reading the file. When the server responds back to the browser with information, the size becomes too large that it takes several minutes to load the complete content on your display device.
Long text, video links, high-resolution images, and all other multimedia stuff increases the size of a webpage. This situation occurs when you don't have the knowledge of HTTP compression.
Now, let's discuss how compressed HTTP respond back. When your browser sends a request for our website which is optimized with HTTP compression, the web server finds the file compress it and send back the results to your browser display.
After receiving the information, browsers compressors the entire information and display it on your browser instantly. During the compression process, around 70 to 80% of the load decreases from the server.
Why do we need an Http header compression?
As you know that the compression is a process of reducing the size of data. Thus; it is very helpful for a server to collect and send the information to a browser. The modern browser of current times can decompress the file instantly and display the entire content to the end user. We need HTTP header compression for a website because of the following reasons.
1. Cutting edge web development
It is the duty of a web developer to prepare the website by including all crucial information in an attractive way. Moreover, they are also responsible for or optimizing the speed of web pages. If they are building a secure and attractive web page by including eye-catching themes but not paying attention to its responding speed, the entire development work will be worthless.
With HTTP header compression, they can easily reduce the size of a web page data up to 80% lower. When the server responds back end user's request with a compressed page, the entire process will be executed instantly. Compression has become the basic requirement of every web developer. Without it, they cannot let a website to stand in the toughest competition of Cyberworld.
2. Better ranking on the search engine
How can you get a better ranking if people are not willing to visit it is your website? It is really important to consider all aspects that are affecting the traffic & conversion rate. You can bring a web address on the topmost list of the search engine but the quality of website matters most if you want to hold this position for a long time.
With paid promotions like PPC & expensive social media campaigning, it is possible to show the URL of your business above all other competitors. Maybe you have great content to serve to your visitors but everything is worthless if the speed of responding from server to browser is slow.
This problem occurs when the web developer has added too much content in a web page but forget to compress its size. When the server brings an uncompressed file to a web browser, it will take too much time for loading.
Consequently, the bounce rate will increase and it badly affects your ranking. In order to bring back your website it on the topmost results of a search engine, you need HTTP header compression.
3. Gaining a huge trusted users base
If good quality content is available on your website and it is loading at blazing Speed, the user will never jump to other competitors website. If people find it helpful, they also recommend others the same website. It means they are helping in improving the outreach of your website to large criteria.
Once you gain the trust of regular visitors to your website, they become affixed the source of income whether it is through browsing or buying products and services.
Importance of HTTP header compression
After good quality content, the second most important thing that and user expectations is a website loading speed. If your website is not capable of drinking results as faster as other competitors, it will stay far behind in the competition.
The HTTP header compression makes sure that the end user is not facing any kind of difficulty while assessing the website. With better speed, you can also expect better ranking which is essential for the growth of any online business.
Tools to identify the success of compression
Once the web developer compressors a website, it is essential to make sure that the process has been executed successfully. For knowing this, some tools are available online to assess for free of cost. For instance, you can search for Gzip compression checker tool.
When you enter the URL of a website in the search bar of this tool, it will process the data of the website to identify whether it is compressed or not. The results will become apparent in a table including:-
- Domain name
- Uncompressed size
- Size after compression
- Total percentage reduced after compression
Advantages of Http header compression
The HTTP header compression is a crucial requirement of modern web development. Without compressing the data of a website, it is not possible to serve the end user with fast results. If the website designer developer is not updating it through the compression process, your online business cannot survive in this competitive environment.
Use a compression checker tool if you want to compare the performance of a competitor. Highest compression percentage against original size means more speed. If your website is lagging in providing adequate speed as compared to others, it is the responsibility of the developer to find the core reason. Moreover, the HTTP header compression also plays a crucial role in maintaining a good ranking status on the search engine.
Other Seo Tools: Gzip Compression Online Html Compressor