Here's a dilemma that afflicts every Joomler who knows what the cache: use it or not?. Before we see the clarity on this term, then look at where, how and when to activate. A cache (pronounced chesc) is a mechanism by which we offer a web page previously developed / visited (technically in cache or cache) to a visitor rather than let them develop all the code that forms the same page.

The mechanism is very simple, with a practical example.

Suppose you have a page showing content: we have first of your HTML, then PHP should be to develop a query to the MySQL database, and when I visit for the first time the page is performed all these operations, with a time of 1 second (value invented and totally random).

The cache is temporary: that every tot minutes the cached pages are removed from our space. Why? Because in the meantime if the page was updated the script caching not found it goes to reprocess the page, and not finding updated offering visitors the old page.

There is, frankly, a default time and the best location for the cache, because it varies for each of our need for some 3 minutes are vital (many visitors), for others it is sufficient to 1 hours (few visitors).

The biggest problem of the cache is that if we are used to update the site very often, or have a basket of products to which we change the price, as long cache (3 minutes, 15 hour ...) to offer Visitor "old" pages: imagine what would happen if after you have doubled the price of a product, a user, thanks to the cache, could buy it at half the price?

Cache with high time (even days) may then be detrimental to the weight of the site every HTML page cached weighs, and if we think we might need to cache a thousand as we understand the weight of the cache folder can become a serious problem.

1.5 fortunately has an excellent system cache, disabled by default, which acts on all fronts: other components, such as Joom! Fish, machines cache standalone systems.

Who is recommended to enable the cache?

Who owns a site with:

• practically only textual content (news),has a good user traffic (not even one thousand, but only 10 per day)
• a site quite heavy