Sites on MyHost Web Hosting just got faster

Without you changing a thing, your websites are now faster, lighter, and more efficient. This is because we’ve just finished rolling out Brotli compression across all of MyHost’s Web Hosting servers.

It quite likely that you've never even heard of Brotli compression before, so here we're going to look at the very impressive improvements that it has made possible for MyHost customers, and then explain more about what it is and how it works.

Average workloads reduced by two-thirds

Compression makes files smaller without losing any information. This reduces the amount of work that it takes to display a webpage when someone visits. As a result, it's quicker for the page to appear.

On average, the size of data transfers have been reduced by about 67%. So, for example, pages that were once 600KB now load at around 200KB. This was achieved with no visual changes to any webpages, and without requiring any work from web developers.

PageSpeed Insights and core web vitals: Numbers that matter

We used Google PageSpeed Insights to assess thousands of website responses before and after enabling Brotli. The results are impressive.

When you look at the PageSpeed Insights for your website, you'll see a performance rating out of 100. For some customer websites we saw this scores improve by up to 20 points. That's a massive instant uplift, and it has a real-life impact on things that matter, like search optimisation and customer experience.

Performance scores account rely on multiple measurements of how fast a page loads. Amongst these measurements are three numbers known as "core web vitals".

Related article: Improve your webpage load time to increase your SEO

Core web vitals are some of the most important metrics that Google uses to determine how webpages rank in search results. Brotli Compression improves all three core web vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Becauses pages are lighter all-round, your largest content block is delivered faster.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Less JavaScript bloat means quicker interactivity, or less wait time between a click of a mouse and a response from your website.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): A layout shift occurs when a page changes after it has started loaded. Faster asset delivery and lower load times reduce layout shifts.

Since Google uses these metrics as a ranking factor, Brotli can indirectly give your site an SEO boost — all without any changes on your part.

Improvements your site visitors will notice

The introduction of Brotli compression will be a boost to your site's UX.

Faster load times mean happier website visitors as well. It's well established that people are more likely to abandon slow websites and more likely to rate their experiences favourably when sites are fast.

Lighter websites are easier to use on slower mobile connections, and they also result in lower data usage for everyone who visits. Every gain adds up.

What is Brotli compression?

Compression is like carefully packing a suitcase to fit in as much as possible. The size of the case doesn't change but the amount that you can carry does. Compression reduces a file's size by using algorithms to find and remove redundant information, making it smaller to store and faster to share.

Brotli is a modern compression algorithm developed by Google, designed specifically for optimising text-based web content like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, and more. Compared to the older Gzip compression, Brotli consistently delivers smaller file sizes while maintaining full quality and compatibility.

For a nerdier explanation than that you can look up Brotli on Wikipedia, or if a full-blown academic experience is more your style then the research paper by the Googlers who invented Brotli compression is also online.

On average, the size of data transfers have been reduced by about 67%.

Why now?

Over recent months, our team noticed just how much of a performance boost Brotli provided for several customer sites. Modern websites—especially those built with page builders like the MyHost Website Builder or advanced WordPress themes and plugins like Elementor or Divi—often generate heavier JavaScript and HTML. Brotli handles these automatically, compressing bulky files down to much smaller sizes.

The results we saw were impressive enough for us to roll out Brotli much more widely. This upgrade translates into faster load times for your visitors and less bandwidth usage on our servers.

We liked the idea of improving site performance without you needing to do anything. It’s automatic. No plugin updates, no theme tweaks, and no developer intervention.

While Brotli has been around for a few years, broad roll-outs like these are more effective now than they once would have been. Modern CPUs are exceptionally efficient at handling Brotli compression, and the hardware that we run have seen negligible CPU impact, even under heavy loads. For site visitors, all of today's popular browsers can instantly decode Brotli compression.

Opting out is possible

Brotli compression is applied by default, but you can turn it off when you need, for example if you're running tests. Just follow this Knowledge Base article to disable it. As you'll see, it's equally easy to turn compression back on later.

If there's anything else you'd like to know about Brotli or website performance, we're always keen to chat. Just get in touch to ask us anything.

Main image by Bernd Hildebrandt from Pixabay.