What is "mod_pagespeed"?
PageSpeed (the Apache mod_pagespeed module) optimizes your pages as they are sent to the visitor, without touching your site's files. For example, it can:
- strip unnecessary whitespace and comments from the HTML,
- minify and combine your CSS and JavaScript files,
- recompress your images and serve them as WebP to compatible browsers,
- apply a long cache lifetime to your static assets.
Your source files stay strictly unchanged. If you disable PageSpeed, your site is served as-is again, immediately.
How do I enable it?
- In cPanel, open PageSpeed (Domains section, or the left-hand menu).
- Your domains are listed with their status: Enabled, Disabled or Not configured.
- Click Configure next to the domain you want.
- The Recommended preset is already selected. Click Save.
That's it: the changes take effect immediately, there is nothing to restart.
Which preset should I choose?
Preset | What it does | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
Recommended | Only the rules that leave your pages strictly equivalent: minification, image recompression, caching. | Everyone. This is the right starting point. |
Performance | Adds the rules that merge and rewrite assets (CSS/JS bundling, WebP, resizing). | Showcase sites, and sites that load a lot of files. Test after enabling. |
All | Enables every rule, including the most intrusive ones. | For testing only, on a site you can check page by page. |
None | Unticks everything, to start from scratch. |
You can then tick or untick each rule individually.
What do the Safe, Moderate and Advanced badges mean?
They indicate the risk that a rule changes something visible on your site:
- Safe: no visible change. Your page is simply lighter.
- Moderate: the rule merges or rewrites assets. Check your site after enabling, as some poorly coded themes cope badly with file bundling.
- Advanced: the rule changes the way the page loads (lazy-loaded images, deferred JavaScript execution). Test these seriously: these are the rules that can break a carousel, a gallery or an animation.
If in doubt, stay on Recommended: the gain is already real and the risk is nil.
My site displays incorrectly since I enabled it, what should I do?
Work through this in order:
- Clear your browser cache and reload the page with a forced refresh (Ctrl+F5, or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac).
- If the problem persists, go back into PageSpeed, click Configure, then select the Recommended preset and save. This removes every Moderate and Advanced rule.
- If it still persists, switch the Enable PageSpeed on this site toggle off and save. Your site is immediately served without any optimization.
To identify the rule at fault, re-enable the rules in small groups, checking your site between each save. The usual suspects are defer_javascript, lazyload_images, prioritize_critical_css and combine_javascript.
I've just enabled it, but I don't see any difference
That's normal for the first few minutes. PageSpeed optimizes images, CSS and JavaScript in the background: the very first visitors receive the original files while the optimization is being prepared. Reload the page several times, then wait a few minutes.
The HTML, for its part, is optimized from the very first load.
Where is the configuration stored?
In the .htaccess file at the root of the site concerned, between two markers:
# BEGIN Hodi PageSpeed
...
# END Hodi PageSpeed
Anything outside these markers is never touched. Conversely, do not edit the content between the markers: it is rewritten every time you save from the interface.
Updated on: 20/07/2026
Thank you!