How to Add Expires Headers in WordPress (2 Methods)

Expires headers are an essential part of the website optimization process. By using an expires header, you can tell web browsers to cache your webpages and resources and serve them from the user’s local cache instead of re-loading them from the server every time a visitor calls your page. This can give a performance boost to your WordPress site, as the browser will spend less time loading the webpage.

Method 1: Use a WordPress Caching Plugin

The simplest and the most effective way to add expires headers to your WordPress website is by using a caching plugin. This will save you the trouble of dealing with code snippets, and you can easily configure the plugin to set up the header. Here are simple steps to set up expires header in WordPress using WP Rocket caching plugin:

1. 1. Install and activate WP Rocket plugin.

1. 1. Go to WP Rocket settings page and navigate to ‘File Optimization’ tab.

1. 1. Check the box next to ‘Set expires headers’.

1. 1. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Once you have enabled the ‘Set expires headers’ option, you can further configure the plugin to change expiration interval for specific file types. To do that, simply click the ‘Specify cache expiration times’ link, choose your file types, and set the expiration time.

Method 2: Manually Add Expires Headers in WordPress

If you are not comfortable using a plugin, then you can manually add the expires headers in WordPress. To do this, you will need to edit your website’s .htaccess file located in the root folder of your WordPress installation. Simply add the following code to the top of your .htaccess file.

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
 ExpiresActive On
 ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
 ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
 ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
 ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
 ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
 ExpiresByType text/html "access 1 month"
 ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
 ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
 ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
 ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
 ExpiresDefault "access 1 month"
 ## EXPIRES CACHING ##

The above code will tell the browser to cache different types of files for specific time periods. Here, images and icons are set to expire after one year, whereas CSS and HTML files are set to expire after one month. You can change these values as per your requirements.

That’s it! That’s how you can easily add expires headers in WordPress. We recommend using the first method as it’s much easier and more efficient than the second method.

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