Free SSL/TLS for your web site, Caching options for your web site

Web Hosting Podcast

SSL/tls

What is ssl and tls. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security
Auto ssl in cpanel – https://blog.cpanel.com/autossl/
Other free SSL sites – Lets encrypt https://letsencrypt.org/
Google will penalize page rankings if SSL is not used as well as mark pages without HTTPS as non-secure.

Caching

In episode one we discussed gzip compression and using cache control headers (expires and headers) to improve website speed.
Now we are going to take it a little farther and discuss more caching options for your site.

A web cache (or HTTP cache) is an information technology for the temporary storage (caching) of web documents, such as HTML pages and images, to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag. A web cache system stores copies of documents passing through it; subsequent requests may be satisfied from the cache if certain conditions are met.[1] A web cache system can refer either to an appliance, or to a computer program.

Source wikipedia -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_cache

2 WordPress specific caching plugins that I have used.

w3 total cache – https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/
wp super cache – https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/

Common features of both.

– PHP caching.
– Compress pages.
– Don’t cache pages for known users.
– Cache rebuild.
– CDN support.
– Extra homepage checks.

Cloud flare -https://www.cloudflare.com/

Cloud Flare is software as a service cache.

Free plan has many options and features that you will want to use.

– Auto Minify
– Page Rules – custom define patterns for your site. for exmaple lock down wp-admin with custom rules.
– apps – add your google analytics code to every page automatically, even error pages. – https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/
– force ssl and version of ssl, even if you don’t have a ssl cert a free one can be provided
– spdy or http2 integration.
– allow for ipv6 to be used
– access rules, define rules based on IP or Country to use a captcha to see your site.
– AMP (accelerated mobile pages) automatically
– scrape shield – email obfuscation, hotlink protection.
– Always online – if your service provider has a issue, a static version of your site will still be online for pages that have been visited and are sitting in cache.

If your web hosting provider is a cloud flare partner, then you may have immediate access right now to cloud flare inside of cPanel. It is quick and easy to get setup.

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