WP Rocket rules in the .htaccess file
Upon activation, WP Rocket will automatically add some rules to the .htaccess file.
The different blocks and rules are WP Rocket's instructions to apply browser caching, GZIP compression, redirect the requests to the cached pages, and others. These rules work on Apache and LiteSpeed servers. But in order to apply these rules to NGINX servers, you should refer to this guide.
In order to use your own .htaccess rules, and/or override WP Rocket's default rules, you should use this approach.
Additionally, if these rules cause problems, such as wrong redirections or a 500 error, you can refer to this process.
The following are the different blocks WP Rocket can add to a website's .htaccess file.
Charset
This block is used to add the UTF-8 encoding for files with the .atom, .css, .js, .json, .rss, .vtt, and, .xml extensions.
# Use UTF-8 encoding for anything served text/plain or text/html AddDefaultCharset UTF-8 # Force UTF-8 for a number of file formats <IfModule mod_mime.c> AddCharset UTF-8 .atom .css .js .json .rss .vtt .xml </IfModule>
ETag
With this block, the ETag header is removed from the assets.
# FileETag None is not enough for every server. <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header unset ETag </IfModule> # Since we’re sending far-future expires, we don’t need ETags for static content. # developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags FileETag None
Webfonts and CORS
With this block, WP Rocket is sending CORS headers when requested, and allowing access to web fonts from all domains.
# Send CORS headers if browsers request them; enabled by default for images. <IfModule mod_setenvif.c> <IfModule mod_headers.c> # mod_headers, y u no match by Content-Type?! <FilesMatch "\.(cur|gif|png|jpe?g|svgz?|ico|webp)$"> SetEnvIf Origin ":" IS_CORS Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*" env=IS_CORS </FilesMatch> </IfModule> </IfModule> # Allow access to web fonts from all domains. <FilesMatch "\.(eot|otf|tt[cf]|woff2?)$"> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*" </IfModule> </FilesMatch>
Pragma, Cache-control and Last-Modified headers
In this block, the X-Powered-By header is added to the HTML pages for support/debugging purposes; the Pragma header is removed because its usage is deprecated; and, the Cache-Control header gets the public directive added so that any layer can cache the asset.
<IfModule mod_alias.c> <FilesMatch "\.(html|htm|rtf|rtx|txt|xsd|xsl|xml)$"> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header set X-Powered-By "WP Rocket/3.15.9" Header unset Pragma Header append Cache-Control "public" Header unset Last-Modified </IfModule> </FilesMatch> <FilesMatch "\.(css|htc|js|asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|eot|exe|gif|gz|gzip|ico|jpg|jpeg|jpe|json|mdb|mid|midi|mov|qt|mp3|m4a|mp4|m4v|mpeg|mpg|mpe|mpp|otf|odb|odc|odf|odg|odp|ods|odt|ogg|pdf|png|pot|pps|ppt|pptx|ra|ram|svg|svgz|swf|tar|tif|tiff|ttf|ttc|wav|wma|wri|xla|xls|xlsx|xlt|xlw|zip)$"> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header unset Pragma Header append Cache-Control "public" </IfModule> </FilesMatch> </IfModule>
Avif
This block adds the image/avif and image/avif-sequence MIME types to the server configuration.
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
AddType image/avif avif
AddType image/avif-sequence avifs
</IfModule>
Browser caching
With this block, WP Rocket adds all the directives for browser caching.
# Expires headers (for better cache control) <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive on ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month" # cache.appcache needs re-requests in FF 3.6 (thanks Remy ~Introducing HTML5) ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest "access plus 0 seconds" # Your document html ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 0 seconds" # Data ExpiresByType text/xml "access plus 0 seconds" ExpiresByType application/xml "access plus 0 seconds" ExpiresByType application/json "access plus 0 seconds" # Feed ExpiresByType application/rss+xml "access plus 1 hour" ExpiresByType application/atom+xml "access plus 1 hour" # Favicon (cannot be renamed) ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 week" # Media: images, video, audio ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType image/webp "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType video/ogg "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType audio/ogg "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType video/webm "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType image/avif "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType image/avif-sequence "access plus 4 months" # HTC files (css3pie) ExpiresByType text/x-component "access plus 1 month" # Webfonts ExpiresByType font/ttf "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType font/otf "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType font/woff "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType font/woff2 "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 4 months" ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month" # CSS and JavaScript ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year" </IfModule>
Gzip compression
This block is used to compress the assets of the site.
# Gzip compression
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# Active compression
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
# Force deflate for mangled headers
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
SetEnvIfNoCase ^(Accept-EncodXng|X-cept-Encoding|X{15}|~{15}|-{15})$ ^((gzip|deflate)\s*,?\s*)+|[X~-]{4,13}$ HAVE_Accept-Encoding
RequestHeader append Accept-Encoding "gzip,deflate" env=HAVE_Accept-Encoding
# Don’t compress images and other uncompressible content
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \
\.(?:gif|jpe?g|png|rar|zip|exe|flv|mov|wma|mp3|avi|swf|mp?g|mp4|webm|webp|pdf)$ no-gzip dont-vary
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
# Compress all output labeled with one of the following MIME-types
<IfModule mod_filter.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/atom+xml \
application/javascript \
application/json \
application/rss+xml \
application/vnd.ms-fontobject \
application/x-font-ttf \
application/xhtml+xml \
application/xml \
font/opentype \
image/svg+xml \
image/x-icon \
text/css \
text/html \
text/plain \
text/x-component \
text/xml
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header append Vary: Accept-Encoding
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
Add .html_gzip encoding
With this block, the .html_gzip MIME type is added to the server configuration.
<IfModule mod_mime.c> AddType text/html .html_gzip AddEncoding gzip .html_gzip </IfModule> <IfModule mod_setenvif.c> SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.html_gzip$ no-gzip </IfModule>
Rewrite rules
These rules are used to serve the cache files, or not, based on the WP Rocket settings.
Note: this block is present on the .htaccess file when the Separate cache files for mobile devices or WebP Compatibility features are disabled. Also, when plugins whose compatibility with WP Rocket includes mandatory and dynamic cookies, such as Cookie Notice, are not installed.
And when this block is not present, all the redirections will be handled with PHP.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} https
RewriteRule .* - [E=WPR_SSL:-https]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteRule .* - [E=WPR_ENC:_gzip]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} GET
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} =""
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Cookie} !(wordpress_logged_in_.+|wp-postpass_|wptouch_switch_toggle|comment_author_|comment_author_email_) [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(/(?:.+/)?feed(?:/(?:.+/?)?)?$|/(?:.+/)?embed/|/(index.php/)?(.*)wp-json(/.*|$))$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^(facebookexternalhit|WhatsApp).* [NC]
RewriteCond "%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/cache/wp-rocket/%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}/index%{ENV:WPR_SSL}%{ENV:WPR_WEBP}.html%{ENV:WPR_ENC}" -f
RewriteRule .* "/wp-content/cache/wp-rocket/%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}/index%{ENV:WPR_SSL}%{ENV:WPR_WEBP}.html%{ENV:WPR_ENC}" [L]
</IfModule>