Brotli and Early Hints
Brotli reduces transfer size for text assets (CSS/JS/HTML). Early Hints (HTTP 103) can start preloads before the origin finishes generating HTML. Brotli is almost always worth enabling. Early Hints is worth testing if your pages have clear critical assets and you can verify there are no duplicate preloads.
Brotli
Enable Brotli in Cloudflare:
Cloudflare -> Speed -> Optimization -> Brotli
Verify:
curl-check-brotli.sh
curl -I -H "Accept-Encoding: br" https://example.com/style.css | grep -i content-encoding
Expected:
brotli-enabled.txt
content-encoding: br
Early Hints (103)
Enable Early Hints in Cloudflare:
Cloudflare -> Speed -> Optimization -> Early Hints
Verify (header examples vary):
curl-check-early-hints.sh
curl -I https://example.com/
You may see:
early-hints-example.txt
HTTP/1.1 103 Early Hints
link: </wp-content/themes/theme/style.css>; rel=preload; as=style
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Why It Hurts | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Assuming Brotli replaces minification | Different layer | Minify still reduces parse time and bytes |
| Too many preloads via Early Hints | Competes with other critical requests | Keep hints limited to truly critical assets |
| Duplicate preloads from multiple tools | Wasted bandwidth | Verify the <head> output and Network waterfall |