Hostgator and Compression

[pmeenan]

Right, to enable gzip you would need for them to have mod_deflate enabled on their apache install and from what I can tell they don't have it enabled for their shared hosting plan.

Something like MaxCDN would be able to do the compression even if Host Gator doesn't because they would be serving the files even if it is hosted on Host Gator (using a pull zone and a plugin that would rewrite the urls to go through the CDN).

Dreamhost and bluehost both have mod_deflate enabled on their shared hosting plans so it's a shame that host gator is choosing not to. Maybe if enough people left and said they were leaving because of it they might actually do something but I don't expect that to really happen.

If you want to stay with host gator you have a few choices:

- Switch to one of their VPS plans where they do allow it (I can't say I'd recommend rewarding them for their behavior by giving them more money though)
- Use a CDN to front your site and take care of GZip for you (among other performance benefits you'd get)
- Find a Wordpress module that would serve the external files through php allowing you to compress it in php instead of at the apache layer