Benefit and Type of Web Cache

The existence of a web cache allows loading websites to be faster. So, you can attract lots of visitors while making them feel at home on your website.

Definition of Cache

What is a web cache? Basically, a web cache is a temporary storage of website data so that it is easy to display it again the next time there is a request. The data can be stored either on the server or the browser.

So, how does a web cache work? To understand this, you must understand the things that happen when the website is accessed without using a cache:

1. After you type the URL, the browser asks the website server to send the page files that you want to access. This process is called an HTTP request.
2. After that, the server finds and sends all the files it needs to load in the browser.
3. Each requested file counts as one request. So, the more files needed for a website page, the more requests the server processes. Of course this will overload the server. Especially if there are many who access this page simultaneously.

Conversely, if the server on the website is using a cache system, the process will be slightly different:

1. The server will save the file in one HTML file.
2. Whenever there is a request, this file will be sent to the browser.
3. Because only one file is sent to the browser, the load on the server will be reduced. In addition, the speed of the server in response to increased demand.

Keep in mind also that the browser also has a cache system. Web site files sent by the server is also stored by the browser in temporary storage. Therefore, when there is a request for the same website page, the browser can display data from the cache. Thus, it is not necessary always to contact the server for faster loading.

Is the above explanation is too technical? If yes, let’s use the following parable:

Server  –  Cache – Visitor

Benefits of Web Cache

After reading the parable, you must have understood the benefits of web cache in general, right? Well, web cache also has several other benefits, namely:

1. Increase Website Speed

Website slow easily turn people away because of tired of waiting. This is mentioned in a study which showed that 53 percent of visitors will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load.

You can imagine if that happened on your business website. Of course losing a lot of visitors will cause big losses, right?

Fortunately, the negative impact of the above can be avoided by enabling the web cache. Nevertheless, it must be supported by a variety of other optimization efforts.

2. Relieve Server Performance

Server performance certainly has its limitations. If forced to work too hard constantly, the server could be down. As a result, your website becomes inaccessible.This can be overcome by using a web cache. As explained earlier, because there is no need to do the same process over and over again, the server load can be reduced. In other words, the web cache can maintain the stability of server performance.

3. Save Memory Server

Web cache is also useful to save memory server. That is, the web hosting service you use certainly has storage capacity, bandwidth and memory (RAM) requirements. Well, that’s what is used to process requests on the server.

With the cache, not all requests have to be processed by the server because it is sufficient to be served by the cache. So, the remaining memory becomes more so that it can be used to handle other requests.

4. Improve Website User Experience

Website speed is one of the factors that affect user experience (UX) or visitor experience. Well, thanks to the web cache, a fast loading website is able to make the user experience of visitors to be better.

5. Website Easier Appear in Google Search

Web cache can also help SEO efforts, both on desktop and mobile. Why is that? When your website is fast, it will be prioritized to appear on search pages. Thus, more and more visitors will come to your website.

Types of Cache Associated with the Website

You can get the above benefits from various types of cache. What are the types? Come on, see the list below:

1. Browser cache

When you access the website, most of the files stored by the browser. This collection of files is called the browser cache.

Well, when you access the same web page, the browser presents quite the cache. This will speed up loading website pages because you don’t have to wait for the server response anymore.

Because it is stored in the browser, you can clear this type of cache via your browser settings. Usually, this is done to:

• Increase the remaining storage capacity of the device so that it can store new files.
• Displays the latest version of a web page that has been updated if the cache still has an old version.

If you are a website owner, you can also adjust the duration of the cache storage in the browser with the add expires header. With such an arrangement, the website will tell the browser to clear the cache in accordance with the given.

2. Cache Server

Server cache is a type of website cache that is stored on the server. So, the website server already has a cache of its pages so that it can be sent to the visitor’s browser more quickly.

There are several types of cache servers, namely:

• Full-page cache

This type of cache contains all data that can be cached from web pages, including images, HTML files, stylesheets and JavaScript. If the website receives a lot of visitors frequently, it is recommended that you use the full-page cache.

• Object cache

Object cache stores only one type of data on a web page. Database or images only, for example. However, the object cache function is not fixed on just one page. Other pages that have the same data or content can also take advantage of existing cache objects. Therefore, this type of cache is useful when there are data or large files running on multiple pages at once.

• Fragment cache

This type of cache acts like an object cache. The difference is, the fragment cache is used for one page only.

• Opcode cache

The opcode cache stores PHP files used by websites. With it, the execution of these files can be accelerated when the website is accessed.

• CDN cache

The CDN cache can only be used after you have integrated your website with a content delivery network (CDN) service. The performance is the same as full-page cache. However, the cache is stored on servers belonging to CDN services in various countries. When visitors access your website, the closest server sends the cache. Therefore, CDN cache is suitable for websites that target international visitors.

Well, talking about cache servers is inseparable from the type of website server used. Nowadays, you can find a variety of web servers, Apache and Nginx are two of them.

However, any type of a website server supports different types of caches. If you want to be able to use all kinds of cache, LiteSpeed Web Server is the option.