NitroPack's Cache Insights gives you an overview of your website's cache. Let's dive into what it offers and how to use it.
1. What is Cache Insights?
Cache Insights is a section within the NitroPack app that provides a comprehensive view of your cache. It displays the status of your optimizations and a list of all optimized pages and offers functionalities to purge and re-optimize your content.
To access this page, navigate through the side menu and select Cache Insights.
Let’s go over all the features and information available on Cache Insights.
2. Optimization status
After connecting NitroPack to your site and initiating content optimization, data about your optimizations will begin to accumulate. The Optimization status provides an overview of these optimizations.
Total pages found indicates the total number of pages detected for optimization during the current period. Mobile, desktop, and tablet versions are counted as separate pages. These pages are categorized into four groups:
Optimization complete: Pages that have been successfully optimized and cached.
Scheduled for optimization - Pages queued for optimization (typically activated by the "Cache warmup" feature) but haven't been optimized yet. If you execute a full site purge and have numerous pages, the number of pages scheduled for optimization could be significant. However, this number will decrease as the optimization progresses. Data on this page refreshes every 10 seconds. Therefore, there may be some delay in the count of the scheduled pages that you re seeing at the moment.
Not eligible for optimization - There are instances where certain pages can't be optimized. Often, these are dynamic pages that shouldn't be cached, such as cart pages, checkout pages, and account pages. Other non-optimizable pages include 404 errors, sitemaps, feed URLs, robots.txt, and xmlrpc..
Optimization failed - Pages that couldn't be optimized after analysis.
Another crucial metric to monitor is the Cache hit ratio, which measures the percentage of requests successfully fetched from the cache. In simpler terms, it indicates the proportion of site visitors accessing your site through a cached page versus a non-cached one.
3. Total cache size
NitroPack doesn't burden your servers with its optimizations. Instead, it utilizes its servers (CDN) to optimize your content.
Total cache size quantifies the volume of optimized cache files stored on NitroPack's servers. To gain insights into how your optimizations are distributed, analyze the data below the graph.
For sites with numerous pages, the HTML cache might be considerable. For image-rich websites, the image cache size might dominate. Monitoring the total cache size can be indicative of your page's weight, influencing site performance. A general recommendation is to streamline your site by eliminating superfluous elements, such as excessive unused fonts.
4. Cache warmup
Cache warmup ensures content remains optimized, even after purging or deleting pages. It prepares optimized versions for both desktop and mobile devices. It's advisable to always enable Cache warmup.
A cached version for tablet view is generated only when a visitor using such a device browses your site. This approach ensures resource efficiency while delivering an optimal user experience.
There are two ways to enable Cache Warmup:
Standard: This mode scans your site to identify popular URLs using various methods. It's ideal for beginners.
Sitemap (Recommended): This strategy uses your sitemap to warm up the cache, taking into account the site's hierarchy. Consequently, pivotal pages get prioritized for optimization. If your site has over 100 pages, this method is recommended to ensure vital pages are optimized first. If you use Yoast, RankMath, All-in-One SEO, or Squirrly, NitroPack will automatically detect and use the sitemaps generated by these plugins. Alternatively, you can upload your XML sitemap. If an issue arises with your provided sitemap, NitroPack will default to the standard mode.
If no source is defined, the system will only warm up URLs purged due to automated events (e.g., post edits or product price changes).
If both sources are set, the sitemap takes precedence. Otherwise, only the links found on your homepage will be warmed up.
Note: The option to supply an XML sitemap is available exclusively for users on paid plans.
5. Test mode
In certain scenarios, you might wish to experiment with NitroPack's features without jeopardizing your site's user experience. In such cases, use the Test mode. This mode allows you to configure optimizations in a test environment before applying them live.
To use this feature, activate the Test mode, then explore different optimization presets and settings.
To preview your site in this mode, append ?testnitro=1 to any URL (e.g., https://yourwebsite.com/?testnitro=1).
While Test mode is active, visitors will view the non-optimized version of your site. After evaluating the optimizations and ensuring stability, remember to deactivate Test mode. This action allows NitroPack to resume optimizing your site, offering visitors a faster, optimized experience.
Page optimization status
Page optimization status is a separate tab that provides a detailed overview of all pages NitroPack has analyzed. It displays the URL, optimization status, device type, tags, and optimization date.
Tags - They determine the relationship of your pages with the rest of the site and its content. They are automatically applied by NitroPack to make the management of the optimizations more effective. For instance, a product or article might belong to multiple categories. Consequently, if changes are introduced, they would need to be updated in the category pages as well. Tags signal these dependencies, so when a specific page is purged, all related content gets purged as well.
Within the Action section, you can opt to purge a specific page's cache or review its performance in Page Speed Insights.
For improved navigation, use the Status and Device type filters or search by URL or tag. You can also sort pages in ascending or descending order based on URLs or Date.
Purge cache
Purge cache deletes the optimized version of your page or site. As a result, visitors experience the site in its non-optimized state until your cache is rebuilt.
It's advisable to purge the cache in the following scenarios:
Major content updates, including images, text, and styles in situations where your visitors need to be served the newer version of your site immediately.
Changes to NitroPack settings.
You can purge the cache in three ways:
Using the Purge cache button, which deletes all cached pages. This action means the cached content won't be available upon the next page refresh. While updated content becomes immediately visible, a minor loading delay occurs until NitroPack completes new optimizations.
Selecting multiple pages and using the "Purge" button.
Purging each page individually.
Typically, manual cache purging isn't necessary. NitroPack autonomously invalidates and purges the cache based on backend actions. However, if you modify content on your site and wish to display the updates immediately, use the Purge Cache button.
So, that's Cache Insights in a nutshell. It's a handy tool in NitroPack that helps you keep an eye on how your site's optimization is going. With it, you can make sure your website is running smoothly and quickly for all your visitors. Happy optimizing!
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