Performance plays a crucial role in the success of a website and web application. Users dislike high latencies and long loading times, which can result in a drop in visitors and fewer conversions to turn traffic into value. Various studies confirm a tight correlation between prolonged waits, even just a few seconds, and an increase in bounce rate, a metric useful for measuring the propensity to abandon a web page. A delay of more than 2 seconds would indeed result in an increase of over 100 percentage points, while just 3 seconds would be enough to lead the visitor to leave a website in favor of another, typically that of a competitor, especially when browsing from a mobile device. A too slow website is often also penalized by search engines. Google, for example, considers performance as a fundamental ranking factor.
There are various methods to maximize performance, such as optimizing images and graphical components that could heavily impact loading times. Among the most effective systems, however, there is an additional option: leveraging an efficient caching mechanism.
What is caching?
Technically, a cache is a memory area where information, such as files or database query results, is stored so that the processing that produced them only needs to be done once. In the case of websites, after the initial loading of a web page, it is stored in the server cache, and subsequent requests can be fulfilled by serving the copy stored in memory, without needing to “perform an operation that has already been processed previously and will generate the same output.”
Consider a WordPress and WooCommerce-based e-commerce platform where, due to business needs, numerous plugins have been installed which could negatively impact performance. If properly utilized, caching would allow for quick access to the catalog, faster display of product pages and the images within them, providing immediate responses via the internal search engine, and mitigating one of the most feared phenomena by merchants: shopping cart abandonment right before checkout. All of this is possible because caching can provide preloaded content, not to mention that caching ensures high performance even during unexpected traffic spikes.
An example of effective caching is called Web Accelerator. It is utilized, for instance, by entities such as Seeweb, to drastically reduce web page loading times, and in the solution Cloud Cache by Artera, a company that offers shared hosting with more advanced features and superior performance compared to similar offerings.
Web Accelerator: caching that maximizes performance
One of the strengths of Web Accelerator lies in the fact that it caches any element of a web page, including HTML code, JavaScript scripts, CSS stylesheets, images, and any other content that can be served in response to a client request.
Web Accelerator doesn’t just cache static content, but also dynamic content, such as information obtained through database queries. Consider a PHP code that sends a query to MySQL and dynamically returns a web page via the web server. Thanks to caching, this process only needs to be done once for each page, reducing resource consumption (and cost) while increasing performance.
The benefits of Web Accelerator also include a <strong>reduction in connections</strong> and a more rational management of requests forwarded to web servers and databases, with the ability to reduce workloads and distribute requests more evenly among different servers.
Returning to the example of WordPress with WooCommerce, it’s worth noting that the open-source CMS has some excellent plugins for cache management, but Web Accelerator further enhances their effects by “squeezing” those few moments that could make the difference between a loyal user and the permanent abandonment of a website. It also provides greater security guarantees because it offers additional protection against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, which aim to exhaust the resources of a web server through the artificial generation of traffic.
Web Accelerator includes a management panel to provide maximum control over the caching mechanism and its effects on performance. Through this tool, users can view, for example, all objects stored in the cache, monitor the status of requests and cache usage in real-time, access statistics on the number of connections directed to the back-end, as well as analyze data and graphs on managed connections, High Availability (HA), and traffic peaks. Additionally, the cache duration is customizable based on the needs of your online project.
Cloud cache di Artera
The proposal Cloud Cache by Artera is a premium solution focused on ease of use, offering high-level performance and unprecedented features for shared hosting. The package includes 50 GB of storage space on SSD disks, monthly traffic up to 1 TB, a dedicated IP address, daily file and data backups, as well as 24/7 technical support throughout the year. Additionally, for developers, support for the Google Cloud API console, the ServiceNow platform, and the Azure local Cloud is available.
The servers of Artera’s Cloud Cache are located in Switzerland, ensuring security, reliability, privacy, and protection of sensitive data. Once you’ve created or transferred your website to the hosting, you have the opportunity to focus on your business because all tasks related to the complexity of the technical infrastructure, maintenance, service continuity, security updates, and monitoring are handled by the provider.
Artera’s stack is based on the Cisco Blade Web server with a CloudLinux operating system, a variant of CentOS: it ensures anti-DDoS protection and provides access to functionalities available through Hosting Management panels like WHM with cPanel. The Firewall & WAF systems, included in the package, are also capable of detecting and thwarting all common attacks that could disrupt the proper functioning of a website and compromise data integrity. Finally, Artera’s price list offers hundreds of optional products to choose from to complement the offering according to the needs of your project and online business.
Artera Cloud Cache: everything you need to know >>
Conclusions
An efficient caching system is crucial for optimizing the performance of a website as it reduces page loading times, thus maximizing the quality of the user experience. Therefore, Web Accelerator represents the ideal solution for those looking to increase traffic and conversions through high performance.
Artera, a company established in 2002 with a Data Center located in Switzerland, offers a <a href=”https://www.artera.net/ita/cloud-cache.html”>Cloud Cache</a> solution that combines performance, security, reliability, and privacy through hosting with features superior to those of a typical shared hosting.
