Nginx vs. Apache, All Things Considered
-
Hey Peeps,
I've been struggling lately with a new static site, and I'm looking for anyone's opinion who's had to optimize a site using Nginx. I understand that Nginx is recommended for static sites, however I want to avoid being in a situation where I can't do things like write redirect rules the way I want to.
Considering that it will be hosting a Static site, are there any features or functions that Nginx lacks when compared to Apache, such as ability to write rewrite rules, etc.?
-
Great to hear. Let me know if you have any question when you start that project.
Casey
-
Yup, I'm in the same boat as you, I'd much rather do server-side redirects..
As an update on this "project", we used the pageless redirects in our staging environment on S3 just now, but were unsuccessful. Certain redirects that we set up in pageless redirects, (such as adding a trailing slash to URLs without,) got clobbered by S3's default setting of 302ing to adding a trailing slash. Weak sauce, Amazon!
At this point, we're going with Apache, since it's the App that our developers know best and we've had too many problems to experiment with our live environment. This being said, our next project after we relaunch with proper redirects will be to begin testing on our stage with Nginx
Thanks for your input!
-
Hey Danny,
I've always done 301 redirects from the server and avoided any other method. This was more for my sanity to make sure that I was getting all the equity I could if there was a difference, not saying there is a difference but if there way, I wanted to be safe. Since it sounds like you may be constrained by your technology, the solution you are going with is fine but if you had both options available, I'd go with the server side redirect always.
-
Thanks Casey!
We've actually found a different work-around that we are looking at right now, using the "pageless redirects" plugin for Jekyll. Basically it uses the meta refresh + rel canon redirection method that Matt Cutts got called out on a while ago. This would allow us to stay on S3 and maintain our blazing fast site speed.
Through my research so far, this seems to pass equity in much the same way as a Server App 301.. Have you had any experiences/heard anything to the contrary?
-
Hi Danny,
The Moz.com website/blog are running on PHP/Nginx. As Matthew said, Nginx is much faster and less intensive on the servers for both CPU and memory. Nginx has some great documentation and is really easy to get things to redirect. It's as easy as adding lines like the following to your configuration and your good to go:
rewrite ^/q$ /community/q permanent;
rewrite ^/q/(.*)$ /community/q/$1 permanent;Making the switch from Apache to Nginx was one of the best things we ever did and I would highly suggest you do the same thing for both static and any dynamic sites you may have. I'll most likely never use Apache again.
Casey
-
From the little I know of Nginx, I know it is meant to be faster, less intensive on server memory and able to handle more concurrent connections, but Apache is more widely supported across different servers and is more flexible out of the box.
The one thing I have had to get my head around in working on clients sites that run on Nginx is the different URL rewrite rules i.e. http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/converting_rewrite_rules.html
-
Thanks Jeff!
I think we're going to go with Apache for now, since it's what all of us are well-versed in. We'll probably be switching to Nginx at some point in the future, and focusing on other aspects that you mentioned, such as caching and compression, in the meantime.
Cheers.
-
Danny - We use Nginx on our WordPress site, and it's pretty quick and easy. We're able to use the same .htaccess rules to handle rewrites, and for the most part, there's very little downside. You do want to make sure that your site isn't going to break before you launch it on Nginx, so I'd test it with a test URL first before you push it live.
We're also running Varnish as a caching system, and our page load speed takes the page from a slowwww load time to a really fast 1.5 second load time.
Hope this helps...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
www vs non-www
We have 2 variations of domains. www and non-www
Technical SEO | | aaaannieee
Both can be seen by users and have been linked to on press releases, but only the www one has data on Google Search Console.
In the case, what is the best practice for us?0 -
Website URL, Robots.txt and Google Search Console (www. vs non www.)
Hi MOZ Community,
Technical SEO | | Badiuzz
I would like to request your kind assistance on domain URLs - www. VS non www. Recently, my team have moved to a new website where a 301 Redirection has been done. Original URL : https://www.example.com.my/ (with www.) New URL : https://example.com.my/ (without www.) Our current robots.txt sitemap : https://www.example.com.my/sitemap.xml (with www.)
Our Google Search Console property : https://www.example.com.my/ (with www.) Question:
1. How/Should I standardize these so that Google crawler can effectively crawl my website?
2. Do I have to change back my website URLs to (with www.) or I just need to update my robots.txt?
3. How can I update my Google Search Console property to reflect accordingly (without www.), because I cannot see the options in the dashboard.
4. Is there any to dos such as Canonicalization needed, or should I wait for Google to automatically detect and change it, especially in GSC property? Really appreciate your kind assistance. Thank you,
Badiuzz0 -
Link to AMP VS AMP Google Cache VS Standard page?
Hi guys, During the link building strategy, which version should i prefer as a destination between: to the normal version (php page) to the Amp page of the Website to the Amp page of Google Cache The main doubt is between AMP of the website or standard Version. Does the canonical meta equals the situation or there is a better solution? Thank you so mutch!
Technical SEO | | Dante_Alighieri0 -
Discrepancy in actual indexed pages vs search console
Hi support, I checked my search console. It said that 8344 pages from www.printcious.com/au/sitemap.xml are indexed by google. however, if i search for site:www.printcious.com/au it only returned me 79 results. See http://imgur.com/a/FUOY2 https://www.google.com/search?num=100&safe=off&biw=1366&bih=638&q=site%3Awww.printcious.com%2Fau&oq=site%3Awww.printcious.com%2Fau&gs_l=serp.3...109843.110225.0.110430.4.4.0.0.0.0.102.275.1j2.3.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..1.0.0.htlbSGrS8p8 Could you please advise why there is discrepancy? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Printcious0 -
How can i make Google to consider my News pages
How can i make Google to consider my News pages as News and place them in the Google News section? Is there some syntax i need to mention in all my news pages?
Technical SEO | | AlexisWithers0 -
404 page for webshop vs 302 redirect
Hi everybody Im the owner of a webshop and we have implemented that products that are not instock are disabled from the shop. My problem is that i have a lot of 404 pages, that right now get redirected to the front page, when the item are not instock. This is because it would hurt the conversion rate if they got a standard 404 page. Customers dont know what a 404 and would click back and choose another competitor. Its really hard to find out what are the best solution and what are not a downrank at google. This has been running like this for 2 years and cant see any negative in the solution regarding seo and so on, What are your thoughts? Christian Hansen Denmark
Technical SEO | | noerdar0 -
Rel - canonical vs 301 redirect
I have multiple product pages on my site - what is better for rankings in your experiance? If I 301 the pages to 1 correct version of the product page - or if I rel caanonical to the one correct page?
Technical SEO | | DavidS-2820610 -
URL Structure "-" vs "/"? Are there any advantages to one over the other?
An example would be domain.com/keyword/keyword2 vs domain.com/keyword-keyword2 Are there any advantages / disadvantages to one over the other?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0