Full Page Cache Warmer

Fast stores get more traffic, while smooth shopping experience improves conversion. Full Page Cache module in Magento 2 is a helpful tool to reduce time to first byte (TTFB) so to speed up Magento 2 store. But it has no such a must functionality as cache warming. Here, our Cache Warmer module starts playing the major role.

How it works

Potatocommerce Cache Warmer is like a smart bot. It emulates visitor behavior, and timely warms up store cache so that your website visitors and Googlebot will always get the content of your pages faster. As a result, your conversion rate will be increased, and you can get higher results in Google ranking.

Cache Warmer has flexible settings to configure it the best way for your store. You can set up to run crawler using different crawling parameters:

• Page Types
• Currencies
• Customer Groups
• Protocols (http/https)
• Stores

By configuring the priority, the extension will warm up the most important pages of your website first, and you always have the cache for the home page, top categories, and best sellers.

What is caching in Magento 2 and why it is needed

Magento 2 platform supports different types of caching which you see on the cache management page. By default, pages get cached only when visitors open the pages of your website in the browser. Later when a page will be updated, most of the content is loaded from the cache much faster.

If you clear cache or cache is expired, your store visitor will have to wait till the server processes all the requests from a browser and deliver the content. For your potential customers, every second counts. So they surely will not wait for long loading. Our module emulates customers’ behavior, crawls pages and keeps the cache updated. Thus, it speeds up page loading and improves conversions of the website.

Why pages may be uncached?

There several reasons for pages to be uncached:

• Page has been updated
  When you save some product, category or CMS page, the cache of the page will be flushed and the page will become uncached. Our module will add an updated page to the top of the queue so to create cache as soon as possible.
  
  
• Cache has been flushed
  Store administrators often flush the cache after updating widgets and custom blocks, as well as after updating the design of the whole website. Our Crawler will update this cache primarily as well.
  
  
• Cache is outdated/expired
  Cache has a lifetime, and once it is ended, the cache will become invalidated. So it is necessary to update the cache from time to time to keep the page fresh.
  

Why pages of your store should always be cached?

For an uncached page, Time to First Byte can be about 5-10 sec. It mostly depends on server capabilities and current server load, as well as on the quality of Magento 2 theme. For a cached page, Time to First Byte is 100-500ms, which is much less than for uncached pages.

Thus, if a user goes to uncached page, then you are likely to lose a customer because every extra second increases the likelihood of losing a client by 25%.

To recap, PotatoCommerce Cache Warmer will keep cache updated and won’t allow its expiration.