Enable Keep-Alive (Page Speed)

Question

What is the keep-alive feature? How can I enable it?

Following is the output from the chrome's Page Speed plugin.

Enable Keep-Alive The host {MYWEBSITE.COM} should enable Keep-Alive. It serves the following resources.

http://MYWEBSITE.com/
http://MYWEBSITE.com/fonts/AGENCYR.TTF
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/big_mini/0002_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/big_mini/0003_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/big_mini/0004_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/big_mini/0005_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/big_mini/0006_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/big_mini/0007_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0002S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0003S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0004S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0005S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0006S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0007S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0008S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0009S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0010S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0011S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0012S.jpg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0013S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0014S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0015S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0016S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0017S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0018S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/images/small/0019S.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/yoxview.css
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/images/empty.gif
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/images/left.png
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/images/popup_ajax_loader.gif
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/images/right.png
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/images/sprites.png
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/img3_mini.jpeg
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/jquery.yoxview-2.21.min.js
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/lang/en.js
http://MYWEBSITE.com/yoxview/yoxview-init.js

Solution 1

HTTP Keep-Alive (otherwise known as HTTP persistent connections) configures the HTTP server to hold open a connection so that it can be reused by the client to send multiple requests thus reducing the overhead of loading a page. Each server and environment are different, so setting it up depends on your environment.

In short: if you're using HTTP/1.0, when making the original request (assuming your server supports it) add a Connection: Keep-Alive header. If the server supports it, it will return the same header back to you. If you're using HTTP/1.1 and the server is configured properly, it will automatically use persistent connections.

Solution 2

Be aware that while Keep-Alive provides some benefit at low volumes, it performs poorly at high volumes for small and medium-size sites (for example, if your blog gets Slashdotted). This Hacker News thread has some good background information.

In other words, while many of the PageSpeed recommendations are great across the board, this one should be taken with a grain of salt.

Comments

[Simon Dragsbæk]

Is it a server fix? markup fix where to set this in the header??