Enable Modules

apache2ctl -M
sudo a2enmod rewrite ssl security2 deflate expires headers
sudo a2enmod mpm_prefork
apache2ctl -M

HTTP to HTTPS redirection of within site links

# Add to TOP
# BEGIN rlrssslReallySimpleSSL rsssl_version[3.3]
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# END rlrssslReallySimpleSSLCode language: PHP (php)

Expires

ensure that the deflate, headers and expires modules are enabled

apache2ctl -M
sudo a2enmod deflate
sudo a2enmod expires
sudo service apache restart
sudo nano /var/www/html/wordpress/.htaccess

## BEGIN : Enable GZIP Compression (compress text, html, javascript, css, xml and so on) ##

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-php
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-fastphp
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE

## END : Enable GZIP Compression ##


# Compress compressible fonts
# only uncomment if you dont have compression turned on already. Otherwise it will cause all other filestypes not to get compressed
# AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf application/x-font-opentype image/svg+xml
# Fonts
# Add correct content-type for fonts
AddType application/vnd.ms-fontobject .eot 
AddType application/x-font-ttf .ttf
AddType application/x-font-opentype .otf
AddType application/x-font-woff .woff
AddType image/svg+xml .svg

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
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 image/svg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType application/x-font-opentype "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

## CACHE CONTOL HEADERS ##
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<filesMatch ".(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg|js|css|swf)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "max-age=84600, public"
</filesMatch>
</IfModule>

Code language: PHP (php)

Apache Settings for speed

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/richardforth/apache2buddy/master/apache2buddy.pl | sudo perl


Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Other .htaccess settings

# Crawlers and Hot Linking
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?bing.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yahoo.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg)$ http://dropbox.com/hotlink-placeholder.jpg [NC,R,L]

# TLS https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/226327268-The-most-important-steps-to-take-to-make-an-Apache-server-more-secure
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload"
</IfModule>
Code language: PHP (php)