Web Development Intermediate

What is Caching?

Storing copies of frequently accessed data in faster storage to reduce load times and server processing.

Caching stores computed results or fetched data for quick reuse. Types include browser cache (assets), CDN cache (edge content), application cache (computed data in Redis/Memcached), and database cache (query results).

Cache headers (Cache-Control, ETag, Last-Modified) control browser caching. Cache invalidation — knowing when to update cached data — is famously one of the hardest problems in computer science.

Related Terms

The latest HTTP version that uses QUIC instead of TCP, providing faster connections and better performance on unreliable networks.

A property where performing an operation multiple times produces the same result as performing it once.

A mechanism where a server sends real-time HTTP POST notifications to a specified URL when specific events occur.

REST (Representational State Transfer)

An architectural style for designing networked applications using standard HTTP methods and stateless communication.

An XML file that lists all important URLs on a website, helping search engines discover and crawl content efficiently.

Brotli Compression

A modern compression algorithm developed by Google that achieves better compression ratios than Gzip for web content delivery.

View All Web Development Terms →