Lack of GZIP/Brotli compression

Problem Summary

Lack of GZIP or Brotli compression means text-based files are transferred at their full size instead of a compressed size.

Performance Impact

• Larger downloads: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG, and JSON transfer more slowly
• Slower first load: Visitors on mobile or weak networks wait longer
• Higher bandwidth usage: Servers and CDNs send unnecessary bytes

How to Detect

1. Response headers: Check for content-encoding: br or gzip
2. Network tab: Compare transferred size with resource size
3. Command line: Test with curl -H "Accept-Encoding: br,gzip" -I URL

Solutions

1. Enable Brotli or GZIP

Brotli is often better for static text assets; GZIP remains widely supported.

2. Configure CDN Compression

Many CDNs can compress eligible responses at the edge.

3. Compress Text, Not Images

JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, and video formats are already compressed differently.

4. Verify Dynamic Responses

Make sure HTML and API responses are compressed, not only static assets.