Speed up page loading on your site pages with Cache HTML and take advantage of the browser cache. Every time a visitor clicks a page, your store's server is forced to send the content to the client's browser. Using the Cache HTML module, page reloading is bypassed, thus an e-shop can greatly enhance page speeds and reduce latencies for visitors with limited internet connections. Cache HTML saves server bandwidth as the headers sent to the browser are structured to enable instant caching and it's ideal for websites with heavy traffic.
To maintain session integrity while caching web pages, the Cache HTML module provides an intelligent method to cache page contents on a per session basis. Page contents and images are sent once initially to the browser. At the same time, the Cache HTML sends out HTTP headers which are processed on the client's end and typically utilized by all popular browsers and popular search engines.
The HTTP headers convey the cache information for page access are then re-sent to the server the next time the same request occurs (in other words when the same link is accessed multiple times). When the initial HTTP headers are sent, they maintain a signature with an expiration time, which is compared to the time of the the current request. This is how the Cache HTML module, knows when to expire the cached version of a page and allow normal script execution forcing the browser to reload the page.
There are two separate periodic timers, to specify thresholds of the cache expiration, on the administration panel of the osCommerce. The first timer is dedicated for visits with session information, where personalized content must be maintained. The second timer is used exclusively for spiders where a fixed and global timeout period can be defined for the cache to expire.
As long as the customer or visitor does not use forms or other methods to alter the current session contents, the pages are simply reloaded from his browser's cache. The Cache HTML manager does not restrict the browser's refresh functions.
Image contents are cached separately as are not subject to sessions generated. For image caching see the on-the-fly thumbnailer module for details. The cache HTML has separate control options to deal with spiders. With bots, crawlers and spiders caching is much faster, as there is no associated session information. For regular visitors, cache per session is flushed when the personalized content of a page is modified. When forms are submitted via a POST method, the Cache HTML updates the internal cache pointers, flushing the cache for the particular visitor only. Specific scripts can also be defined to flush the entire Cache HTML.
Page Scripts can be configured from the E-Commerce administrator panel. Additional cache configuration options via the /GET parameters are included, where the site administrator may select the conditions where the cache state must be cleared.
Cache timeout controls are included specifying the duration where each page can be maintained on the client's end. Cache reports are included and can assist with E-Commerce Marketing Reports and SEO of the website, as they show the cache HTML efficiency on a per page script basis. Cache Efficiency of the Cache HTML module is measured separately for humans versus spiders and the module also prints out the overall efficiency of the website. The Cache HTML module operates on demand via configuration cache switches where the website owner can specify the actual scripts to be cached. Cache HTML only processes pre-defined scripts.
Integration of the Cache HTML is available for the stock osCommerce, the I-Metrics Layer and included with the I-Metrics CMS. |
