Broswers unless you disbale it allways cache websites. You can not control this from the website.

If your refering to server file management and how files are served by BC - BC already deploys caching and gzipping of files.

Expiry is something different and no matter what testing you do on different sites google pagespeed always just does a general notification about leverage browser caching.
I would not worry about as the things it outline BC does it.

Wether an external system detects it or not is a thing but BC does run GZIP and caching.

This is a BC header:

   1. Request URL:

   http://businesscatalyst.com/

   2. Request Method:

   GET

   3. Status Code:

   200 OK

   4. Request Headersview source

      1. Accept:

      text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,/;q=0.8

      2. Accept-Encoding:

      gzip,deflate,sdch

      3. Accept-Language:

      en-US,en;q=0.8

      4. Cache-Control:

      max-age=0

      5. Connection:

      keep-alive

      6. Cookie:

      ANONID_FS-2=11.01.2013 02:27:21.999; VID-2=-1; __atuvc=2%7C43;

      visitorDeviceClass=desktop; __unam=84185e2-1424e942076-61e4c19d-4;

      ASP.NET_SessionId=v1i2vqqkqbtxgh55tt402ann;

      __lc.visitor_id.1031448=S1385004115.71f5477061;

      ANONID-2=13004d62-17bb-4c2e-8196-4210b9343bcb;

      VISID-2=704f6038-8338-420d-894b-797c0728fe74#

      businesscatalyst.com#21.11.2013 03:20:39.447; s_cc=true;

      s_sq=%5B%5BB%5D%5D

      7. Host:

      businesscatalyst.com

      8. Pragma:

      no-cache

What you need to look at is

Cache-Control:

max-age=0

Explanation -

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1046966/whats-the-difference-between-cache-control-max- age-0-and-no-cache

Can this issue please be looked into? We are running the Google Page Insights across most of our sites, and we can't get full marks on BC sites becasue we need to enable Leverage Browser Caching. For sites where we do have access to .htacces, this is an easy fix and improves the score considerably.

Can this not be done to all sites, just as you have enabled gzip compression?

It has and its different and many systems will report this in the google page stuff. If you read the google documentation they also state how they can do not detect all methods.

BC has a caching system, its not working 100% at the moment with the amazon move so its not updating when you want to but they have that and as we mentioned gzip in there.

BC is not running apache and there is no .htaccess Windows IIS .Net platform.

Thanks Liam.

Could BC please supply some additional information on what method is being used, and how it has been implemented? We have an external SEO company reviewing a site and they would like to know in detail. We would also like some further clarification for future reference.

Also, I can't find anything on Google's Leverage Browser Caching page about them not being able to detect some methods: https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/LeverageBrowserCaching. I would think that Google could detect all methods that they recommend, because they are obviously searching for them.

I'm confused by your line "BC has a caching system, its not working 100% at the moment with the amazon move so its not updating when you want to" - so it actually isn't enabled? Please clarify.

Cheers,

Klaye

How a Cache works in a system like this is...

You see a set of files and folders via SFTP, BC and other systems. It does not mean they are all in the same place as you see them, they sit elsewhere and also do not mean they are the things loaded on a website.

SO things like your images, your stylesheets you upload are there BUT BC runs a cached version of these files in a different location as it were. Not quite like that but for explaining this, it will do.

So when a page loads it reads that cached, giziped file. Few other things go on as well.

BC is currently optimising BC to work under the new amazon infustrcuture but at the moment there is a few issues with caching, like over caching. You update your CSS but the changes do not reflect on the website. This shows you that this exists.

OR you have an image you delete it but its still rendeirn on the website, or you replace it but you see the old one.

Issues being resolved but it shows you BC has a caching system in place.

Thanks for this info Liam.

So does this mean that once you have the issues ironed out with Amazon, the Leverage Browser Caching will be fixed in the Google PageSpeed Insights tool?

We've now had 3 clients contact us in the past few weeks in regards to loading issues on their site, and I'm sure there will be more to come. What do we say to them about this?

Cheers,

Klaye

Just to let you know also, the Leverage Browser Caching suggestion is marked as critical, or "SHOULD FIX" within the Google tool. This will be bringing down the score considerably.

If you really want to do something you can run your site through a cache CDN distribution service, Like the google one:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/service

I actually just saw this yesterday and was hoping to look more into it next week.

If this will resolve these issues, then that's perfect.

Thanks Liam. All the best.

The thing again to note that its not an issue or like a problem or harming your SEO etc.

It is just google would liike something done in one way and BC does it in another.

Liam, I Just received a response from Google:

"We are really sorry but currently PSS does not support sites hosted on Adobe Business Catalyst."

Why is this? What needs to be done to get it working? If we can't have server access to make changes as per Google's recommendations, and can't run their PageSpeed service, then what are we supposed to do?

Terms and setup may differ but BC does a number of the optimisations already, just differently. And once the amazon migration tweaks is finished and things run better things should get faster and faster and a number of the amazon infustructure benefits utilised more and more.

BC is not like wordpress and your hosting setup is not like a standard one you would put wordpress on.

This does not answer my question.

How can we get Google PageSpeed Service working with BC?

We can only optimise so far with BC using the Google Insights tool, but need PSS to be able to optimise it to its full potential. Surely somebody can give us a clear answer on this. As popularity increases for the service, more and more BC partners will be requesting it so it needs to be looked into.

Simply saying that BC optimises things in a way that Google cannot recognise is a cop out. If Google can't detect the optimisation, then how are they going to rank a site accordingly?

OR let us manage the server so that we can make the necessary changes ourselves.

And does this also mean that we can't use other CDN services such as Cloudflare?

Also Liam, your reply a few posts above states "If you really want to do something you can run your site through a cache CDN distribution service, Like the google one: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/service"

What changed between then and now?

You wont be able to and you will never be allowed to manage the server yourself. Maybe this is something with the enterprise edition is a possibility with the dedicated stuff but you would have to contact BC for that and pay the extra costs.

Pagespeed has changed. I had a few sites running it as the first istance was a Google chached render of the site. They partly do that from google search results now and offer more then what it was. Google evolves and changes its products very rapidly.

What about Cloudflare? Is this not possible either?

That should be, there are mahy types of caching, from a rendered cersion or more structured. But this also has inherent issues if the site is something that is updated often for example.

What work around does Business Catalyst offer partners so that we can add expiry dates to images, css files, js files and such?

It is understandable that BC does not offer access to the server. However, then may the community request an alternative? This need shows when testing the webistes we are building for clients inside the BC framework with http://gtmetrix.com/

Elsewhere I can readily do this by accessing my .htaccess file.   How can I do the same when it is not available to me in BC? One site needed image caching is www.homedetination.com

This is very important because it imapacts a pages load speed, which search engines are concerned about. Viewers simply often leave if a page takes to long to load.

I am aware of X-Pire. It creates encrypted copies of images and requires an expiration date (either one month, six months, 1 year or a specific date) when you post them online. To view the encrypted images you need the X-Pire browser add-on (which has a German language interface) is currently is only available under Firefox. When the viewer encounters an encrypted image it sends off a request for a key to unlock it. This key will only be sent, and the image become viewable, if the expiration date has not been passed. However there is a cost by X-Pire to upload the images and if your subscription lapses, no one can view the images any longer.

If BC would create a simplier process withing the BC framework itself; partners would gain considerable. Facebook, Wordpress, and many other platforms already do so.

Or does it exist and I am unaware of it?

It doesn't exist, but a solution needs to be offered soon. I'm hoping someone higher up in BC can make a statement regarding this and highlight their future plans. We can't make changes ourselves, and can't use Google's PageSpeed Service to resolve this for us. There doesn't seem to be any BC activity on these forums, and all support requests are outsourced overseas.

Thanks for the GTmetrix tool, it's another good one.

Hi guys,

We know about this limitation, and should be relatively easy to fix.

The reason we didn't fix it was our concern that once we enable it, you, the partner, will have a more difficult life because you will make changes on a page, and then the browser will not reload it.

Will this impact your workflow?

What should be the default expiration time for assets? Should it be the same for all asset types?

Do you need a flag to enable/disable it?

Alexandru

Hi Alexandru,

Good to see a response from BC regarding this, and nice to know it can be resolved.

I'm not sure what you mean about the reloading issue. We have browser caching enabled on a PHP server and refresh works fine. Sometimes a forced refresh is needed, but there aren't any issues when we are making updates.

It would be nice to have an extra setting to enable this on a per site basis, but happy for it to be on all by default.

Alternatively, are we able to use Cloudflare? Using the Google PageSpeed Service would be ideal, however I've been told it's not possible - please confirm.

Cheers,

Klaye

I understand what you mean Alexandru

I think there should be a new control setting in the admin for this.

On this page there should be a button to enable this. So you would likely only turn this on when you go live.

On this page it would also be nice to have the clear site cache button, currently if something goes a bit whacky with this you have to contact second level support to do this, like with the cart life time. This would remove some need to contact support as well.

I do not like it on by default, the downside people like Klaye may not understand is about the devleopment on things with such heavy optimisaitons in place.

Klaye, Ever used a CMS called Silverstripe? Alexnadru I know you will likely have of course.

Great CMS from New Zealand of all places but the caching system while making renders for live sites fast is a evil pain in the *** to develop with.

You have to put a paraamter in the url to flush the cache, either the whole site or

yourpage?flush=1

Adds a bit annoyance to your development time.

If it something you can flick on and off in the admin, so when you need to develop on the site you can turn it off etc.

As stated in my previous email, "I'm not sure what you mean about the reloading issue. We have browser caching enabled on a PHP server and refresh works fine. Sometimes a forced refresh is needed, but there aren't any issues when we are making updates."

This is what you're referring to isn't it, updates not displaying due to caching?

Alexandru, any more details on my previous response? Is Cloudflare an option in Google PageSpeed isn't?

If caching is something that can be enabled inside BC, what will the turnaround be? I need something to go back to our clients with.

Cheers,

Klaye

Hey,

It is not about your browser caching files etc. It is to do with the server side and how things are rendered. The file you upload for your CSS is not the file that is distributed with your site now for example, It is a gziped form.

More rich caching systems are more optimised etc. Updating these and how sites work is more involved then just putting new files on the server, like with what I mentioned with Silverstripe.

And again, BC is running Gzip and forms of caching already, if you want more then there is more to it.

Can we please have an update on this, and answers to my recent questions from a BC representative.

We need something to go back to our clients with. They are expecting the Google PageSpeed service to be set up, but if that is not possible, then I need to know what is.

- When will browser caching be enabled in BC?

- Alternatively, are we able to use Cloudflare?

Cheers,

Klaye

Hi Klaye,

Our caching for static assets is on the backlog, but scheduled for late spring.

Until then, nothing prevents you from using CloudFlare or CloudFront (from Amazon) to speed up the serving of your static assets (and rewrite the header rules) . Just configure there a new domain with the origin pointing to BC, then use those images in your page.

I'll ask the support team to write a document detailing how to do this.

Alexandru

Awesome. Thanks for your response Alexandru.

I'll set up a site on Cloudflare to test the speed increase and post results here once done for others to see.

Looking forward to browser caching being enabled in BC also.

Cheers,

Klaye

Hi Everyone

A tutorial on how to setup Amazon's CloudFront is now available: http://forums.adobe.com/docs/DOC-4261

Kind Regards,

Alex

Hi all,

I have successfully set up Cloudflare on 4 BC sites now, and am very pleased with the results. Browser caching has been enabled along with a bunch of other optimisation, and all sites are showing a considerable reduction in size and resource requests, resulting in a faster load time. The set up for this is relatively easy.

We are only using the free service for now, but hope to upgrade to a paid account and see another improvement.

One issue however is that you must access the site admin & FTP via your branded sub-domain. FTP fails to connect at all on the primary domain, and we noticed some admin features not working correctly.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Klaye

Resulting issue with working in admin via that development URL not the live URL is in some cases when you insert links etc, BC will use the current url path of the admin and will set it as the development url not the live url.

We're actually finding that some sections of the admin don't work at all when logging into the live URL. For example, in web forms we can't create new fields or copy a form. There were also issues with web apps and blogs, so I'm sure there will be more sections that won't work too.

Not a problem though, we've just let clients on Cloudflare know that they need to login via the dev URL.

Klaye

How have things been progressing with this issue. Have you heard if BC has developed the caching or are you still using cloudflare free version

You wont, because your going through a 3rd party caching system and BC wont support those, they cant.

In terms of what BC are doing - Everyone should be following the blog. BC announced a few months ago now BC.Next work and as part of that they have a new caching system.

Hi all,

We have just released a feature that allows you to leverage browser caching. It can be enabled only for sites that have been switched over to use the new BC.Next rendering engine.

Here's what it does, how you can enable it and some of the limitations: http://docs.businesscatalyst.com/developers/beta/enhanced-caching-mechanism

Thanks and regards,

Florin