.htaccess

[JackDaniel's]

Have you ever used the GZIP compression tehnology ?

php_flag zlib.output_compression On
php_value zlib.output_compression_level 5

Adding those lines into your .htaccess file should speed up the php scripts on your server, if your host allows GZIP compression !

But I also heard that this could affect some search engine rankings

[Infrastruct]

That may have been a problem a while back but not any more, the search engine bots are aware of compressed content now and will accept it.

[cd34]

The problem with doing it with php is twofold. One, it doesn't easily support chunked output. Secondly, it adds some buffering to the page.

Lets say you have a page that consists of 100k of HTML. With Apache's internal gzip/deflate, it grabs a chunk, compresses it, sends it, grabs another chunk, sends it, etc.

With php's gzip, it takes the entire page and sends it as one chunk. Remember, until the browser has the html, it doesn't know what external scripts, css, images, etc need to be rendered in the page. The result is that you can't even start rendering a page until the complete gzipped page is received. The net effect is a 2-3 wait, unzip, slam the html on the screen, then start fetching the images, css, etc.

It shouldn't affect search engine rankings. Google, et al all seem to have no problem with it.

[Useless]

That's why I had a multi-directional hyper-threading flux capacitor with counter-sunk grommet resurfacing installed on my server. Of course, my box runs Seneca, not Apache, so there may be 7-8 flourescent scan sequential embarkment.

[cd34]

http://delorean.com/dmcstore/onlinestore-search.asp

Just in case you need a spare flux capacitor, just type in 'flux' in the search box and note the part number.

[Maj. Stress]

and it's free!