mod_pagespeed The New Apache Module

mod_pagespeed, a part of Google’s initiative to make the web faster. It is a module for Apache HTTP web server running on both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux distributions like CentOS, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu.

Google’s Pagespeed Tool, which suggests the onpage and server side improvement, rules that can be implemented to the server or the website to reduce the page load time. The mod_pagespeed module automates the application of those rules in Apache HTTP webserver. The mod_pagespeed module are dynamically changed on the fly upon receiving a HTTP request from the client so that the best practices recommended by the Page Speed Firefox addon can be used without having to change anything on the server or the website.

Minimum Server Requirements for mod_pagespeed

• Linux/Debian based OS (CentOS/Fedora/Ubuntu) 32-bit or 64-bit
• Apache 2.2 Webserver

Pros and Cons of mod_pagespeed
It is no doubt a useful module for Apache. It has seen that mod_pagespeed reduced the page load times by 50% (It is an average across a rough sample of sites the developers tested) which is 2X faster than a normal Apache webserver without pagespeed. It also reduces the bandwidth usage by compressing and minifying the HTML, Javascript, CSS and static contents like images and documents.

The mod_pagespeed module is a server intensive module and tends to increase the server load on a high traffic site. There should be no performance drop on a high-end server but those who have a low-end server should not install mod_pagespeed.

Here is a video from Google showing the improvements after installing the mod_pagespeed on the Google Adsense Official Blog.