Page caching is like a snapshot of a website page that’s saved and shown to visitors, so the website doesn’t have to create the page from scratch every time. It’s great for making static websites faster, but not for dynamic membership sites like those built with Memberium.
In this article, we’ll explore:
- Why page caching doesn’t work with Memberium
- The problems with using caching as a quick fix for slow sites
- How you can use caching on your main marketing website
- Our stance on Cloudflare and caching
Incompatibility with Memberium: No Varnish Cache or Other Page Caching
Memberium creates dynamic pages that change for each logged-in member. This means the content, access, and layout of pages can be different for each user, depending on their membership level and preferences.
Using Varnish cache or other page caching solutions is unsupported and incompatible with Memberium for this reason. When you use page caching on a membership site, it can cause the wrong information to be displayed to each member, leading to confusion and potential security issues.
Caching: A Band-Aid Solution for Slow Sites
People often look to caching as a way to speed up their slow websites. But it’s important to understand that caching is just a band-aid solution that covers up the root problem. If your website is slow, there might be other issues like:
- Poorly optimized images
- Excessive use of plugins
- Badly written code
- Slow web hosting
To truly improve your website’s performance, you should address these underlying issues instead of relying on caching.
Caching on Your Main Marketing Website
It’s perfectly fine to use caching on your main marketing website to improve its performance, as long as you have your membership site on a subdomain with caching disabled. This way, your marketing pages can load quickly, while your membership site remains dynamic and tailored to each member.
Our Stance on Cloudflare
We don’t officially support Cloudflare because it caches pages by default, and it can be challenging to use their constantly changing features to disable caching. If you’re using Cloudflare, you might need to seek additional help to ensure that caching is disabled on your membership site.
We do our best to keep this linked Cloudflare article up to date, but the frequency at which Cloudflare implements new features and changes their interface make that difficult.
Unlike page caching and Varnish cache, you can use Cloudflare with Memberium. However, our support team is limited in the amount of assistance they can provide in making it compatible with Memberium. If you notice dynamic pages showing incorrect information, we’d first suggest you disable the Cloudflare proxy to see if that resolves the issue.
In Conclusion
Page caching can be a helpful tool for speeding up static websites, but it’s not compatible with dynamic membership sites like those built with Memberium. Remember to keep your membership site on a subdomain with caching disabled and work on addressing the root issues causing your website to be slow, rather than relying on caching as a band-aid solution.
