Enhance Your Website’s Pagespeed Performance With Web Caching
When it comes to web optimization, implementing a web caching mechanism is one of the most effective methods for improving a website’s PageSpeed performance. Now you may wonder what web caching is and why it’s important for the website’s PageSpeed performance.
We will break the ice by explaining the details of web caching, including what it is, its impact on a website’s performance, and how RabbitLoader implements browser caching and CDN caching to improve your website’s PageSpeed performance.
What Is Web Caching
Web caching is an optimization method for temporarily storing static content such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media files (images, maps, videos) for quicker retrieval, improving the website’s loading speed.
To understand the web caching mechanism, let’s briefly explain how a browser displays a website’s content to a user.
- When a user requests a web page, the browser makes HTTP requests.
- That HTTP request goes to the origin/ backend server.
- The server processes the request and sends back a response.
This process can make the loading time high, especially when the physical distance between the user and the server is very high or the website has high traffic. This is when the web cache comes into play.
A Web cache temporarily stores the website’s static resources and delivers the content when it’s required. When a website implements a web caching mechanism, the requested content can be fetched from the web cache instead of the backend, reducing the latency. Therefore, the loading speed is automatically improved.
We will explain different caching mechanisms with real-life examples below.
Most Impactful Web Caching techniques for PageSpeed Performance improvement
Several web caching mechanisms are possible such as browser caching, CDN caching, Object caching, database caching, and many more. Here we will explain the two most impactful web caching mechanisms that are essential in order to optimize a website’s PageSpeed performance:
- Browser Caching
- CDN Caching
What Is Browser Caching?
Browser caching (also known as client-side caching) is a web caching mechanism for temporarily storing a website’s static content in the browser cache. Let’s understand this with an example.
When a user visits a website for the first time, the browser loads and stores the static content in the browser cache. Therefore, when the user re-opens the website, the browser doesn’t have the exigencies to load it again; it fetches the cached content from the browser cache instead of loading from the origin server. This can positively impact a website’s loading speed.
For example, if you visit a blog on our website for the first time, your browser loads static content such as images, CSS stylesheets, scripting files, and HTML files and stores them in your browser’s cache memory. When you revisit our blog the content will be delivered from the browser cache, reducing the page loading time.
What Is CDN Caching?
CDN caching is also known as a server-side caching mechanism. In this mechanism, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) stores static content (images, CSS stylesheets, HTML, and JavaScript files) on the proxy server.
When a user requests content, it can be fetched from the nearest proxy server instead of the origin server, improving the PageSpeed performance by reducing the network latency. Let’s understand CDN caching with an example.
Assume our website RabbitLoader.com is hosted on a California datacenter and you visited it from NewYork. The physical distance can be a reason behind your high network latency. However, a CDN distributes the static content between the proxy servers worldwide. Thus, when a browser makes an HTTP request, it will go to the nearest edge server instead of the origin server. It would reduce the network latency and boost your website’s PageSpeed performance.
Note: To determine a cache’s efficiency, you need to measure the cache hit & cache miss ratio. To know about these two cache metrics, read our blog on the cache hit ratio.
The Importance Of Implementing A Web Caching Mechanism On A Website
Web caching has several positive impacts on the PageSpeed performance of a website. Let’s explore the most common reason behind using web caching on your website which includes:
- Enhance your website’s PageSpeed performance
- Reduce the server overloading
- Increase the website’s security
Enhance Your Website’s Pagespeed Performance
A web cache can significantly improve your website’s PageSpeed performance by temporarily storing its cached content. This can positively affect your user experience and help you achieve a desirable conversion rate. So, PageSpeed is an essential factor for your website.
Reduce The Server Overloading
After implementing an efficient web caching mechanism on your website, its content will quickly be retrieved from the web cache. This automatically reduces server overloading by minimizing the HTTP request to the origin server.
Increase The Website’s Security
Using CDN caching can increase your website’s security by allowing you to access the website’s content without exposing its origin server.
Implement Web Caching With Rabbitloader
Implementing browser caching and CDN caching can be daunting, especially when you are not a tech wizard. Investing your money & time in different plugins for browser caching and CDN caching doesn’t make much sense when RabbitLoader can do both for you.
Let’s see how RabbitLoader can implement browser caching as well as CDN caching in your website.
Implement Browser Caching With RabbitLoader
RabbitLoader implements an advanced browser caching mechanism with efficient caching strategies. When you make changes to your website’s content, RabbitLoader automatically updates the cached content, so your visitors can enjoy stale-free content.
While manually implementing a browser cache requires a lot of time and a little bit of expertise, installing RabbitLoader allows you to implement an advanced browser mechanism with a few clicks. It also allows you to set how long you want to cache content.
Implement CDN Caching With RabbitLoader
The advantage of installing RabbitLoader on your website is that you don’t need to invest in an external Content Delivery Network (CDN). RabbitLoader has an integrated premium CDN that reduces network latency by sharing static content between its 300+ edge servers all over the world, improving the website’s Pagespeed performance.
If you are considering optimizing your website by implementing a web caching mechanism, Try RabbitLoader now and see your website’s PageSpeed score jump up within just a few minutes.