This article was written for Magento 1.x and is kept for reference. Running Magento 1 in 2026 is a security risk — ask me about migrating to Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce.
Two quick wins for Magento performance:
1. Enable Gzip compression in your root .htaccess:
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>
php_flag zlib.output_compression on2. Use flat catalog tables. Go to System → Configuration → Catalog → Frontend, set both Use Flat Catalog Category and Use Flat Catalog Product to Yes, then reindex from Index Management.
2026 note: for Magento 2, the modern equivalents are Varnish full-page cache, Redis, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, PHP 8.x with OPcache, and a Hyvä frontend — contact me for a free speed checkup.