Speeding Up Your Website Using Cloudflare Cache

Pillser has implemented Cloudflare caching to enhance website performance, which is crucial for improving Google search rankings. The author enabled features such as Tiered Cache and Cache Reserve, which significantly reduced response times from 100ms to under 10ms. Cache Rules were established to cache pages accessed by non-authenticated users, focusing on specific URL patterns. The flexibility of Cloudflare's rules language allows for tailored caching strategies, including caching by device type. The author also utilized strong ETags to manage cache invalidation effectively. However, challenges arose with serving stale content while revalidating, as the expected behavior did not occur consistently. The author noted a lack of features for setting a maximum age for stale content, which would allow for longer cache retention while still ensuring regular revalidation. Additionally, the author automated cache purging through the Cloudflare API, facilitating updates to individual product caches. Latency tests demonstrated that Cloudflare caching significantly improved response times across various regions, particularly benefiting users located farther from the origin server.

- Cloudflare caching enhances website performance and search rankings.

- Features like Tiered Cache and Cache Reserve drastically reduce response times.

- Cache Rules allow for specific caching strategies based on user authentication and URL patterns.

- Challenges exist in serving stale content while revalidating and managing cache expiration.

- Automated cache purging via the Cloudflare API streamlines updates to product caches.