cache-headers

name	cache-headers
description	Cache architecture for SEO: Cache-Control directives, CDN vs browser cache, ETag and Last-Modified, caching strategies by content type, and CMS-specific configuration for WordPress (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed), PrestaShop, and Nginx/Apache. Use when diagnosing TTFB issues, configuring caching layers, or auditing cache-related headers in HTTP responses.

Cache Headers & Caching Strategy — Technical SEO

Correct caching is the single highest-ROI performance optimization for most sites. A cold origin TTFB of 800ms becomes < 50ms with a CDN cache hit.

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Cache-Control directives reference

Directive	Meaning	Use case
max-age=N	Browser can cache for N seconds	Static assets
s-maxage=N	CDN/shared cache can cache for N seconds	CDN-specific TTL
no-cache	Must revalidate with server before using cache	HTML pages
no-store	Do not cache at all	Authenticated/transactional pages
must-revalidate	Once stale, must revalidate (do not serve stale)	HTML pages
public	Shared caches (CDN) can store this response	Static assets, HTML
private	Only browser cache, not CDN	Logged-in user pages
immutable	Content will not change — no revalidation needed	Versioned static assets
stale-while-revalidate=N	Serve stale while fetching fresh in background	HTML for fast TTFB

Combinations by content type

Static assets (CSS, JS, images) — versioned with hash in filename:
Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

HTML pages (anonymous visitors):
Cache-Control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate
  or with CDN:
Cache-Control: public, s-maxage=3600, stale-while-revalidate=86400

HTML pages (logged-in users):
Cache-Control: private, no-cache

Checkout / cart / account:
Cache-Control: no-store

API responses (public):
Cache-Control: public, max-age=300, s-maxage=600

Sitemaps and robots.txt:
Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600

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Cache layers architecture

User browser
    ↓
Browser cache (private, per user)
    ↓
CDN edge (shared, per PoP — Cloudflare, Fastly, CloudFront, etc.)
    ↓
Reverse proxy / load balancer (Nginx, Varnish)
    ↓
Application cache (WP Rocket page cache, LiteSpeed Cache, PrestaShop CCC)
    ↓
Object cache (Redis, Memcached — DB query results)
    ↓
PHP runtime (OPcache — compiled PHP bytecode)
    ↓
Database (MySQL / MariaDB)

Each layer reduces load on the next. A CDN hit eliminates all layers below it. A page cache hit eliminates the PHP and database layers.

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ETag and Last-Modified

Both are validation mechanisms — they allow a client with a cached response to ask "has this changed?" without downloading the full response again.

Last-Modified:

Response: Last-Modified: Wed, 16 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT
Next request: If-Modified-Since: Wed, 16 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT
Server: 304 Not Modified (if unchanged) or 200 + new content

ETag:

Response: ETag: "abc123"
Next request: If-None-Match: "abc123"
Server: 304 Not Modified (if same) or 200 + new content

SEO relevance: ETags and Last-Modified enable Googlebot to efficiently re-crawl pages — if the content has not changed, Googlebot receives 304 and skips re-processing. This conserves crawl budget on large sites.

When ETags are a problem: Nginx and Apache can generate ETags that include inode numbers. On multi-server setups, different servers generate different ETags for the same file → cache validation fails → unnecessary full responses.

Fix for Nginx:

etag off;  # or use FileETag MTime Size in Apache

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WordPress caching

Page cache — plugin options

Plugin	Mechanism	Recommended stack
WP Rocket	File-based page cache	Nginx or Apache + LiteSpeed
LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed server-native	Hostinger, LiteSpeed servers
W3 Total Cache	Multiple backends	VPS with Redis/Memcached
WP Super Cache	File-based	Basic shared hosting

WP Rocket configuration

Page Cache:

• Settings > Cache > Enable caching for mobile devices: on
• Separate cache for mobile: on (if theme is responsive, keep off)
• Cache lifespan: 10 hours (adjust to content update frequency)

Browser cache:

• Settings > Browser Caching > on
• WP Rocket handles Cache-Control headers for static assets

CDN integration:

• Settings > CDN > CDN hostname: your CDN URL
• This rewrites asset URLs to the CDN hostname

Exclusions (important for e-commerce):

URLs to never cache:
/cart/
/checkout/
/my-account/
/order-received/

Cookies that bypass cache:
woocommerce_cart_hash
woocommerce_items_in_cart
wp_woocommerce_session_

LiteSpeed Cache

Common misconfiguration — X-Robots-Tag on XML files: LiteSpeed may apply X-Robots-Tag: noindex to all XML responses including sitemaps. Fix: LiteSpeed Cache > Advanced > Excludes > Do Not Cache URIs > /sitemap*.xml

Cache purge on publish: LiteSpeed Cache automatically purges page cache when a post is published or updated. Verify this is working: publish a post and check the response headers for the page — X-LiteSpeed-Cache: miss confirms a fresh request was served.

Separate mobile cache — WP Customizer CSS stripped: LiteSpeed Cache can maintain separate cached versions for desktop and mobile (detected by User-Agent). When CSS is added via WP Customizer (Additional CSS), LiteSpeed's CSS optimization strips the <style id="wp-custom-css"> block when building the mobile cache. Result: CSS works for logged-in admins (who bypass cache) and in DevTools mobile simulation (which uses the desktop cache), but not on real mobile devices.

Diagnosis:

# Fetch with mobile UA and check for wp-custom-css block
curl -s -A "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1" \
  https://domain.com/page/ | grep -i "wp-custom-css\|font-size"
# If wp-custom-css is absent from the HTML, LiteSpeed is stripping it

Fix — use Code Snippets plugin (scope site-css) instead of WP Customizer: Code Snippets generates a dedicated external stylesheet (?code-snippets-css=1) that LiteSpeed includes correctly in the HTML for all devices. The WP Customizer inline <style> block is unreliable with LiteSpeed CSS optimization enabled.

# Create CSS snippet via Code Snippets REST API
curl -X POST https://domain.com/wp-json/code-snippets/v1/snippets \
  -H "Authorization: Basic <base64(user:app-password)>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title":"my-css","code":".selector { property: value !important; }","scope":"site-css","active":true}'
# Then purge LiteSpeed cache manually from WP Admin

Note: WP Admin may be blocked by Cloudflare for scripted requests. In that case the cache purge must be triggered manually from the WordPress dashboard.

Redis object cache

Object cache stores database query results in memory. Eliminates repeated identical queries to MySQL.

// wp-config.php
define('WP_CACHE_KEY_SALT', 'unique-site-key');
define('WP_REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1');
define('WP_REDIS_PORT', 6379);

Object cache reduces TTFB on pages with complex WP_Query calls (WooCommerce shop, custom post type archives, widgets pulling recent posts).

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PrestaShop caching

CCC (Combine, Compress, Cache)

Path: Advanced Parameters > Performance > CCC

Option	Effect	Recommended
Smart cache for CSS	Combines and compresses CSS	On
Smart cache for JavaScript	Combines and compresses JS	On
Minify HTML	Removes whitespace from HTML	On
Compress inline JavaScript	Minifies inline JS	On
Move JavaScript to end	Defers JS to before </body>	On

Warning: CCC can break custom themes. Test on staging first.

Smarty cache

Path: Advanced Parameters > Performance > Smarty

Setting	Production value
Cache compilation	Never recompile template files
Cache	Enabled
Caching type	File system

Full-page cache for PrestaShop

PrestaShop does not include a built-in full-page cache. Options:

1. Varnish in front of the application server — caches full HTML responses
2. Nginx FastCGI cache — caches PHP-FPM responses at the web server level
3. Third-party module — available on PrestaShop Addons marketplace

Configure cache bypass for:

• /order/ (checkout)
• /cart/
• Any URL with PHPSESSID cookie set

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Nginx caching configuration

FastCGI page cache

# In http block
fastcgi_cache_path /var/cache/nginx levels=1:2 keys_zone=WORDPRESS:100m
                   inactive=60m max_size=1g;

# In server block
set $skip_cache 0;

# Bypass cache for logged-in users and WooCommerce
if ($http_cookie ~* "comment_author|wordpress_[a-f0-9]+|wp-postpass|woocommerce_cart_hash|woocommerce_items_in_cart") {
    set $skip_cache 1;
}
if ($request_uri ~* "/wp-admin/|/wp-login.php|/cart/|/checkout/|/my-account/") {
    set $skip_cache 1;
}

fastcgi_cache WORDPRESS;
fastcgi_cache_valid 200 301 302 1h;
fastcgi_cache_bypass $skip_cache;
fastcgi_no_cache $skip_cache;
add_header X-FastCGI-Cache $upstream_cache_status;

Static asset cache headers

# CSS, JS, fonts — long cache with versioning assumption
location ~* \.(css|js|woff2|woff|ttf|eot)$ {
    expires 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=31536000, immutable";
}

# Images
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|webp|avif|svg|ico)$ {
    expires 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=31536000";
}

# Sitemaps and feeds — shorter TTL
location ~* \.(xml|txt)$ {
    expires 1h;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
}

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CDN caching

What CDNs cache by default

Most CDNs (Cloudflare, Fastly, CloudFront) cache:

• CSS, JS, images, fonts — yes, by default
• HTML — no, not by default (treated as dynamic)

To cache HTML, you must configure a cache rule:

Cloudflare — cache HTML with short TTL:

Rule: Cache Everything
Edge TTL: 1 hour
Bypass cache: Cookie contains "wordpress_logged_in" OR URI contains "/wp-admin/"

Effect: TTFB drops from 400-800ms (origin) to 10-50ms (CDN edge).

Cache invalidation

When you publish new content, the CDN must serve the new version. Options:

1. Short TTL (1h): cache expires automatically. Simple but means stale content for up to 1 hour after a change.
2. Cache purge on publish: WordPress plugins (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed) can purge the CDN cache for specific URLs when content is updated.
3. Cache-Control: stale-while-revalidate: serve stale while fetching fresh in background — best user experience.

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Diagnosing cache issues

Check headers directly

# Check what cache headers a URL is returning
curl -I https://domain.com/page/ 2>&1 | grep -i "cache\|x-cache\|age\|etag\|last-modified"

Key headers to read:

Header	Value	Meaning
Cache-Control: no-store	—	Response will never be cached
X-Cache: HIT	—	CDN served from cache
X-Cache: MISS	—	CDN fetched from origin
Age: 3600	seconds	Response has been cached for 3600s
CF-Cache-Status: DYNAMIC	Cloudflare	HTML not being cached
X-LiteSpeed-Cache: hit	LiteSpeed	Served from LiteSpeed cache

Common issues

Cache-Control: no-store on all HTML (PrestaShop default)

PrestaShop ships with no-store on all HTML responses to prevent caching of session-aware pages. Fix: enable CCC and Smarty cache (see PrestaShop section).

Cache-Control: private on anonymous pages

WordPress plugins or themes that set private prevent CDNs from caching pages that could be safely cached for anonymous visitors.

No cache headers at all

Old PHP applications or misconfigured servers may emit no Cache-Control header. Browsers default to heuristic caching (usually 10% of the Last-Modified age). Explicit headers are always better.

Cache headers correct but TTFB still high

CDN is configured but HTML is bypassing it (CF-Cache-Status: DYNAMIC). Check CDN rules — HTML may need an explicit "Cache Everything" rule.

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Audit checklist

CRITICAL
[ ] HTML pages return Cache-Control header (not absent)
[ ] Cart, checkout, and account pages return Cache-Control: no-store
[ ] No Cache-Control: no-store on anonymous HTML pages
[ ] Sitemap does not return X-Robots-Tag: noindex (LiteSpeed issue)

HIGH
[ ] TTFB < 800ms on primary pages (PSI field data or curl)
[ ] Page caching active (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, Smarty)
[ ] Static assets (CSS, JS, images) have long max-age (>1 year)
[ ] CDN configured and serving static assets (X-Cache: HIT or CF-Cache-Status: HIT)

MEDIUM
[ ] CDN caching HTML for anonymous visitors (not just assets)
[ ] OPcache active for PHP (check php.ini or phpinfo())
[ ] Redis/Memcached for WordPress object cache (high-traffic sites)
[ ] ETag configuration on multi-server setups (no inode-based ETags)
[ ] PrestaShop: CCC active with all options enabled

LOW
[ ] Cache-Control: immutable on versioned static assets
[ ] stale-while-revalidate configured for HTML responses
[ ] Cache purge on content publish (CDN invalidation)
[ ] Age header present on CDN responses (confirms caching is active)