Decrease HTTP to HTTPS redirect time

Question

I don't even know if this is possible, but I decided to ask.

We are using an Apache2 server. There is a 301 permanent redirect set up from http to https.

View Waterfall of Load Times of Our Site

However, I notice that the actual redirect time for some other sites (eg Akamai) is much faster even though they also (seem to) have the same type of redirect in place.

View Waterfall Load Times of Another Site

To clarify, the redirect is already in place I am just trying to imporove the redirect time . Is there something I am missing? Is there something I don't realize or know about that can decrease the actual time to redirect to the https page?

Answer 1

If you use HSTS, after the first visits, the browser will contact directly the https version for all pages of the domain. It will save you the 301.

It only works if you want to use https for ALL webpages of your domain!

The HSTS headers indicate to the browser that it need to use https for all communications with that domain (for XXX seconds). It have an options to apply it to subdomains as well.