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Webcaching basics

What Is Caching?

Caching, or temporarily storing content from previous requests, is part of the core content delivery strategy implemented within the HTTP protocol. Components throughout the delivery path can all cache items to speed up subsequent requests, subject to the caching policies declared for the content. There are many different types of caching available, each of which has its own characteristics. Application caches and memory caches are both popular for their ability to speed up certain responses.

Web Caching

Web caching is a core design feature of the HTTP protocol meant to minimize network traffic while improving the perceived responsiveness of the system as a whole.

Web caching works by caching the HTTP responses for requests according to certain rules. Subsequent requests for cached content can then be fulfilled from a cache closer to the user instead of sending the request all the way back to the web server.