About Caching

Caching is a system where pages are stored (cached) on the server to allow them to be loaded faster by the user. The page that gets cached is a snapshot of the page at the point it got cached. PinnacleApp is a content managed system so if you make changes to areas of the website you will need to clear the cache for those areas. The next time area/page is loaded it will be cached again. The initial load will be slower as the page is generated, after the initial load the faster loading cached version will be served.

For obvious reasons any areas of the website that show product information are not cached as this information is updated on a nightly basis. The areas of the site that are cached are as follows;

Page Cache
Static Pages (About Us, Terms & Conditions, etc). These types of pages are cached in their entirety.  This cache will need to be cleared after you make any changes to the site pages.

Category Cache
The main and sidebar category navigation areas are cached. This cache will need to be cleared after any changes to the main or sidebar navigation areas.

Link Lists
The link list caches holds the information stored in the secondary navigation areas such as the footer or any image based links you have on the website.  These areas are rarely changed so we have them in a separate cache.

Template
This cache holds the other areas of the website such as the featured product tabs, banners etc. After you make any changes to a main banner or add/remove a featured product this cache must be cleared.

Ok, how do I clear the cache?

Now the easy bit, from your Dashboard, in the ‘What do you want to do?’ area select ‘Cache Control’, you can then clear the either of the various caches by simply clicking ‘Clear’.

Important
If you display ‘Featured Products’ on your homepage you will need to clear the Template cache after making changes to these products in Ascend. This area is supposed to be managed regularly and more than likely is updated weekly or monthly. We decided to cache this area as it had a significant affect on initial homepage load times. We are currently looking at a way to automate the caching for this area.

Future development
We plan on automating the cache control for all areas soon.

Questions?
If you have any questions about the cache control or are unsure of anything we have discussed here please contact us.