Webmaster.Info : AOL Caching Info

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Webmaster.Info : AOL Caching Info Home AOL Client AOL Network Netscape Gecko Cookies HTTP Headers P3P Security FAQ Glossary Postmaster@AOL DNS@AOL AOL Caching Info Caching | Connectivity | Proxy Info | Vary Header Info When using a browser integrated with the AOL client software, AOL members make web requests through a set of
caching proxy servers. If the servers have a current copy of a requested web object, it will be served to the member
directly from the cache server instead of the request going over the Internet to the origin web server. AOL will cache
most types of web objects including JavaScript files, HTML, and images. AOL's caching servers cache web objects according to header information provided by the originating web server.
These headers are cached and served to members along with their respective object. This caching system follows
most requirements of the HTTP/1.1 standard. Specifically, AOL follows HTTP/1.1 rules in the areas of determining
cacheability and freshness. For more information, visit the Internet FAQ consortium and refer to Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.1 documentation or RFC 2616. IMPORTANT NOTE: Cookies set in the HTTP headers of a cacheable object are also cached and served to
members. Cookie values intended to be unique (customer id, session, id, etc.) should only be set with non-cacheable
objects. Setting Caching Parameters with HTTP headers: The following HTTP headers are used by AOL's cache to determine an object's cacheability. Web Servers can be
configured to return the appropriate HTTP headers for the caching behavior you determine to be appropriate. This
functionality can be used by a webmaster who may prefer to cache only pieces of their web site. The specific
information for configuring a web server is server-dependent. IMPORTANT NOTE: AOL's proxy system does not read HTML. Use of the META HTTP-EQUIV tags in the content of
web pages (in either HEAD or BODY) does not control the behavior of AOL's proxy caches. Cache-Control: no-store This object may not be stored in any cache, even the requestor's browser cache. Cache-Control: no-cache This object may be held in any cache but it must be revalidated every time it is requested. Cache-Control: private This object can be stored in the requesting browser

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