What is the difference between HTTP status code 200 (cache) vs status code 304?

Question

I'm using the Google "Page Speed" plug-in for Firefox to access my web site.

Some of the components on my page is indicated as HTTP status:

200 200 (cache) 304

By Google's "Page Speed".

What I'm confused about is the difference between 200 (cache) and 304.

I've refreshed the page multiple times (but have not cleared my cache) and it always seems that my favicon.ico and a few images are status=200 (cache) while some other images are http status 304.

I don't understand why the difference.

UPDATE:

Using Google "Page Speed", I receive a "200 (cache)" for http://example.com/favicon.ico as well as http://cdn.example.com/js/ga.js

But, I receive a http status "304" for http://cdn.example.com/js/combined.min.js

I don't understand why I have two JavaScript files located in the same directory /js/, one returning a http status 304 and the other returning a 200 (cache) status code.

Answer 1

The items with code "200 (cache)" were fulfilled directly from your browser cache, meaning that the original requests for the items were returned with headers indicating that the browser could cache them (e.g. future-dated Expires or Cache-Control: max-age headers), and that at the time you triggered the new request, those cached objects were still stored in local cache and had not yet expired.

304s, on the other hand, are the response of the server after the browser has checked if a file was modified since the last version it had cached (the answer being "no").

For most optimal web performance, you're best off setting a far-future Expires: or Cache-Control: max-age header for all assets, and then when an asset needs to be changed, changing the actual filename of the asset or appending a version string to requests for that asset. This eliminates the need for any request to be made unless the asset has definitely changed from the version in cache (no need for that 304 response). Google has more details on correct use of long-term caching.

Answer 2

200 (cache) means Firefox is simply using the locally cached version. This is the fastest because no request to the Web server is made.

304 means Firefox is sending a "If-Modified-Since" conditional request to the Web server. If the file has not been updated since the date sent by the browser, the Web server returns a 304 response which essentially tells Firefox to use its cached version. It is not as fast as 200 (cache) because the request is still sent to the Web server, but the server doesn't have to send the contents of the file.

To your last question, I don't know why the two JavaScript files in the same directory are returning different results.

Answer 3

This threw me for a long time too. The first thing I'd verify is that you're not reloading the page by clicking the refresh button, that will always issue a conditional request for resources and will return 304s for many of the page elements. Instead go up to the url bar select the page and hit enter as if you had just typed in the same URL again, that will give you a better indicator of what's being cached properly. This article does a great job explaining the difference between conditional and unconditional requests and how the refresh button affects them: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2010/07/08/technical-information-about-conditional-http-requests-and-the-refresh-button.aspx

Answer 4

HTTP 304 is "not modified". Your web server is basically telling the browser "this file hasn't changed since the last time you requested it." Whereas an HTTP 200 is telling the browser "here is a successful response" - which should be returned when it's either the first time your browser is accessing the file or the first time a modified copy is being accessed.

For more info on status codes check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes.

Answer 5

For your last question, why ? I'll try to explain with what I know

A brief explanation of those three status codes in layman's terms.

• 200 - success (browser requests and get file from server)

If caching is enabled in the server

• 200 (from memory cache) - file found in browser, so browser is not going request from server
• 304 - browser request a file but it is rejected by server

For some files browser is deciding to request from server and for some it's deciding to read from stored (cached) files. Why is this ? Every files has an expiry date, so

If a file is not expired then the browser will use from cache (200 cache).

If file is expired, browser requests server for a file. Server check file in both places (browser and server). If same file found, server refuses the request. As per protocol browser uses existing file.

look at this nginx configuration

location / {
    add_header Cache-Control must-revalidate;
    expires     60;
    etag on;

    ...
}

Here the expiry is set to 60 seconds, so all static files are cached for 60 seconds. So if u request a file again within 60 seconds browser will read from memory (200 memory). If u request after 60 seconds browser will request server (304).

I assumed that the file is not changed after 60 seconds, in that case you would get 200 (ie, updated file will be fetched from server).

So, if the servers are configured with different expiring and caching headers (policies), the status may differ.

In your case you are using cdn, the main purpose of cdn is high availability and fast delivery. Therefore they use multiple servers. Even though it seems like files are in same directory, cdn might use multiple servers to provide u content, if those servers have different configurations. Then these status can change. Hope it helps.