The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word cache as “an area or type of computer memory in which information that is often in use can be stored temporarily and got to especially quickly”. So cache – pronounced “CASH” – is basically computer hardware or software that is used to temporarily store data.
What is a Cached Web Page?
With cached web pages, your web browser saves copies of the web pages you’ve visited in order to reduce bandwidth usage and accelerate the loading speed. Search engines also cache web pages to allow access to them if the website’s server isn’t accessible.
Browser Caching
When you visit a website for the first time, it has to retrieve a number of resources including JavaScript files, stylesheets and fonts. Your browser has to download these files in addition to the page content.
With browser caching, your browser stores all these files for a while so that it won’t need to retrieve them every time you visit the site. This means that the web page will load much faster the next time you visit it.
Server Caching
When someone visits a web page for the first time, they will receive the page in the normal way where all the data (JavaScript, CSS, images etc.) are processed on the server and the resulting pages are returned as HTML and sent to the browser.
With server caching, the server will store the HTML file so that the next time someone visits the page, it won’t have to do the processing and conversion to HTML all over again. It can simply send the cached HTML file to the visitor’s browser, thereby speeding up the whole process.
