Web cache - Web caching is the caching of web documents (e.g., HTML pages, images) to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag. A web cache stores copies of documents passing through it; subsequent requests may be satisfied from the cache if certain conditions are met.
It is not to be confused with a web archive, a site that keeps old versions of web pages
Controlling Web caches
HTTP defines three basic mechanisms for controlling caches: freshness, validation and invalidation.
It is not to be confused with a web archive, a site that keeps old versions of web pages
Controlling Web caches
HTTP defines three basic mechanisms for controlling caches: freshness, validation and invalidation.
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Freshness allows a response to be used without re-checking it on the origin server, and can be controlled by both the server and the client. For example, the Expires response header gives a date when the document becomes stale, and the Cache-Control: max-age directive tells the cache how many seconds the response is fresh for. -
Validation can be used to check whether a cached response is still good after it becomes stale. For example, if the response has a Last-Modified header, a cache can make a conditional request using the If-Modified-Since header to see if it has changed. -
Invalidation is usually a side effect of another request that passes through the cache. For example, if URL associated with a cached response subsequently gets a POST, PUT or DELETE request, the cached response will be invalidated.
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