Google Cache

What is actually cached?

[chadmg]

Does anyone know what is actually cached in google? Originally my @imported style sheet wasn't showing in the cache, but now it's showing in my newly indexed pages. And when I go to the cached page, it shows up in my logs as a hit on the page with a referrer of google. So if it's a true cache, why do I still get the hit at all?

[BlueSky]

I think the only thing cached is the text on the page. When someone accesses a cached page on my site, I've noticed hits for css, js, and image files. For the last week, Googlebot-Image has been very slowly indexing my graphics. Once he's done and they are part of the index, I'm not sure if that will elimate hits for images or not. For external css and js files, I get hits for those.

[Krapulator]

HTML document is cached. External JS, CSS, images etc called from the original site when cache is viewed.

[keyplyr]

Googlebot-Image robot crawls your site to make thumbnails of your images for the Google Image Search feature, not related to Google cache.

[chadmg]

Thanks for your replies. That is what I figured, but I'm still not sure why I'm getting hits for my asp page, since that should be cached. Are dynamic (asp/php) pages cached differently? Are other people getting hits on their html pages from the google cache?

[keyplyr]

I'm still not sure why I'm getting hits for my asp page, since that should be cached

Many indexes, portals, browsers and other web resources 'cache' portions of other resources for numerous reasons, the main ones being bandwidth economy and speed. While Google, or other SEs, may have already cached your 'asp page' others may have not. Google itself may reindex and cache that page many times for a variety of reasons. Many browsers may cache your files so they do not need to find and load that file again, depending on your server configuration. Portals like AOL will actually cache and compress image files of often accessed webpages, while Google will call the images fresh.

[chadmg]

keyplyr, I don't think you understood my question. When I am talking about the hits on my asp page, I mean that when I deliberately hit the cached version of my website on google, I register a hit on the asp page in my logs. I understand caching, I'm just asking specifically about what google caches. And why, if google is caching the html and supposedly only linking to external images, css, and js, would I also find a hit for the asp page?

[lbobke]

am I missing something or couldn't you just go to the cached verson of your page and look at the source code?

Laurenz

[BlueSky]

I've got static html and dynamic php pages. Neither get hits on the actual page when someone accesses the cache. Only the external js, external css, and image files produce a hit. Are you sure the visitors are not first looking at your page then going back to look at the cache? If this is happening, you'll see a difference in the referrer info. If your ASP pages are indeed getting a hit when a person views the cache, I don't know why they would be treated differently.

[chadmg]

Thanks for the tip. I checked the source of the cache and it has the tag <base href=mydomain> which might be the culprit. Otherwise, I haven't a clue.

I have no visitors. I <--- am the visitor. It is me testing this and I definitely get a hit on the page when I view the google cached file.

[BlueSky]

I have no visitors. I <--- am the visitor.

Well, I guess that rules out the visitor going back and forth. lolol

Mine has a base tag too. I don't know why yours is acting differently. Grasping at straws now -- maybe it has something to do with cache age or your site not yet being in all the datacenters?

[chadmg]

Thanks to all who responded. If anyone is interested, I figured out why I was getting hits on my asp page when someone hit the page in google's cache. I have a domain that just does a 302 redirect to another domain. So both domains show up in google. When I was viewing the cached version of the redirected url, it couldn't retrieve the external stylesheets, images, and js, and I would get a hit on the page. It doesn't do this when I visit the cache of the correct url that doesn't redirect. My guess is that google tries to grab the external stuff from the base href and then if it can't it may give the page a hit to see if it's actually there. Just a guess.

BTW, I also have a third domain name that redirects as well, and google is able to pull the correct external files and it doesn't register as a hit on the asp page. So it probably just incorrectly cached the page that one time.