[Table of Contents] [Next Page]

---

Caching Tutorial for Web Authors and Webmasters

This is an informational document. Although technical in nature, it attempts to make the concepts involved understandable and applicable in real-world situations. Because of this, some aspects of the material are simplified or omitted, for the sake of clarity. If you are interested in the minutia of the subject, please explore the References and Further Information at the end.

1. What's a Web Cache? Why do people use them?
2. Kinds of Web Caches
   1. Browser Caches
   2. Proxy Caches
3. Aren't Web Caches bad for me? Why should I help them?
4. How Web Caches Work
5. How (and how not) to Control Caches
   1. HTML Meta Tags vs. HTTP Headers
   2. Pragma HTTP Headers (and why they don't work)
   3. Controlling Freshness with the Expires HTTP Header
   4. Cache-Control HTTP Headers
   5. Validators and Validation
6. Tips for Building a Cache-Aware Site
7. Writing Cache-Aware Scripts
8. Frequently Asked Questions
9. A Note About the HTTP
10. Implementation Notes - Web Servers
11. Implementation Notes - Server-Side Scripting
12. References and Further Information
13. About This Document

---

[Table of Contents] [Next Page]