The first step of website speed optimization start with selecting quality web hosting services and of course server optimization. This guide is written for general purpose, however described techniques work on VPS and above with root access, as well as require deep understanding of server administration.
If you are a blogger or small business website owner, probably you don't need to do that, but if you have large, complicated project with high levels of traffic, then continue reading.
Even some of the most popular CMS and blogging platforms sometimes require some extra boost, for instance high traffic Joomla, Drupal and even WordPress can consume a lot of resources and can be unusable if traffic levels are high.
Now lets start with the essence and the very basics.
Choosing Server Operating System
Assuming that we are talking about PHP based project, Windows might to the job, but without a doubt Linux will save a lot of system resources. Picking popular Linux distro can be tricky, I have test most and without a doubt for web project CentOS or Ubuntu LTS would be the right choice. Both have active communities, so if things go wrong it is easy to find reliable support. Best...