diff --git a/roles/nginx/files/nginx.conf b/roles/nginx/files/nginx.conf
index 11c0df3..0f3acd7 100644
--- a/roles/nginx/files/nginx.conf
+++ b/roles/nginx/files/nginx.conf
@@ -63,7 +63,11 @@ http {
     # 75% reduction for most ASCII files (almost identical to level 9).
     gzip_comp_level 5;
 
-    gzip_min_length 860;
+    # Don't compress anything that's already small and unlikely to shrink much
+    # if at all (the default is 20 bytes, which is bad as that usually leads to
+    # larger files after gzipping).
+    gzip_min_length 256;
+
     gzip_disable "msie6";
     gzip_http_version 1.1;
     # Compress all output labeled with one of the following MIME-types.