How to enable browser caching for my site? Do I just put cache-control:public somewhere up in my header like this?
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"
Cache-Control:public;
>
I am using the latest version of PHP developing on the latest version of XAMPP.
This question is related to
http
browser-cache
This is the best .htaccess I have used in my actual website:
<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>
##Tweaks##
Header set X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/html "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 1 month"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Connection keep-alive
<filesmatch "\.(ico|flv|gif|swf|eot|woff|otf|ttf|svg)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000, public"
</filesmatch>
<filesmatch "\.(jpg|jpeg|png)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=1209600, public"
</filesmatch>
# css and js should use private for proxy caching https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best-practices/caching#LeverageProxyCaching
<filesmatch "\.(css)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, private"
</filesmatch>
<filesmatch "\.(js)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=1209600, private"
</filesmatch>
<filesMatch "\.(x?html?|php)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=600, private, must-revalidate"
</filesMatch>
</IfModule>
The meta cache control tag allows Web publishers to define how pages should be handled by caches. They include directives to declare what should be cacheable, what may be stored by caches, modifications of the expiration mechanism, and revalidation and reload controls.
The allowed values are:
Public - may be cached in public shared caches
Private - may only be cached in private cache
no-Cache - may not be cached
no-Store - may be cached but not archived
Please be careful about case sensitivity. Add the following meta tag in the source of your webpage. The difference in spelling at the end of the tag is either you use " /> = xml or "> = html.
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="public">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="private">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="no-store">
Source-> MetaTags
The page at http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/apache-speed-cache-control.html suggests using something like this:
Add Cache-Control Headers
This goes in your root .htaccess file but if you have access to httpd.conf that is better.
This code uses the FilesMatch directive and the Header directive to add Cache-Control Headers to certain files.# 480 weeks <FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$"> Header set Cache-Control "max-age=290304000, public" </FilesMatch>
As I wrote is best to use the file .htaccess. However beware of the time you leave the contents in the cache.
Use:
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800, public"
</FilesMatch>
Where: 604800 = 7 days
PS: This can be used to reset any header
For Apache server, you should check mod_expires for setting Expires and Cache-Control headers.
Alternatively, you can use Header directive to add Cache-Control on your own:
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=290304000, public"
OWASP recommends the following,
Whenever possible ensure the cache-control HTTP header is set with no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, private; and that the pragma HTTP header is set with no-cache.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Cache-Control "private, no-cache, no-store, proxy-revalidate, no-transform"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"
</IfModule>
You can set the headers in PHP by using:
<?php
//set headers to NOT cache a page
header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate"); //HTTP 1.1
header("Pragma: no-cache"); //HTTP 1.0
header("Expires: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); // Date in the past
//or, if you DO want a file to cache, use:
header("Cache-Control: max-age=2592000"); //30days (60sec * 60min * 24hours * 30days)
?>
Note that the exact headers used will depend on your needs (and if you need to support HTTP 1.0 and/or HTTP 1.1)
Source: Stackoverflow.com