How Early Serve Works in Cache Engine

Early Serve is an optional Cache Engine feature that delivers cached pages much faster. Normally, even when a page is cached, WordPress still loads your theme and every active plugin before Cache Engine can hand the cached copy to the visitor. On sites with many plugins, that startup work can take a second or more. Early Serve answers the request before any of that happens.

• What it speeds up: cached pages for visitors who aren’t logged in, including visits that arrive with ad or email tracking links (for example ?utm_source=, ?gclid=, ?fbclid=).

• What it leaves alone: anything personal or dynamic, such as logged-in visitors, carts, checkout, account pages, forms and search or filter results. These always load normally.

• How much faster: in our testing, cached pages served this way were returned around 3 times faster than the same pages served the standard way.

Important: Early Serve is turned off by default. To enable it on your site, contact our support team. It only works on sites with Cache Engine active.

1. A visitor requests a page that Cache Engine has already cached.

2. Early Serve checks that the request is safe to answer from cache: the visitor isn’t logged in, has no cart, and the URL has no parameters that change the page.

3. If everything checks out, the cached page is sent straight away, before your theme and plugins load.

4. If anything doesn’t check out, the request continues the normal way. Nothing breaks; that visit just doesn’t get the extra speed.

The page your visitors see is the same either way. Early Serve only changes how quickly it’s delivered.

Early Serve is designed to stay out of the way whenever serving a cached page could show the wrong thing. It automatically skips:

• Logged-in visitors, including customers and administrators.

• Visitors with items in their cart, and the cart, checkout and account pages.

• Shop sorting and filtering URLs, such as ?orderby= or price and attribute filters.

• Pages with forms that need a fresh security token, such as Gravity Forms pages.

• URLs with unrecognised parameters. Only common tracking parameters are treated as safe.

• Maintenance and coming-soon mode, while it’s switched on.

• Sites running a supported security firewall plugin, such as Wordfence, Solid Security, All-In-One Security, Shield, Cerber, NinjaFirewall, CleanTalk and MalCare. This keeps the firewall’s blocking rules fully in effect.

After a page is updated or the cache is cleared, the first visit loads the page normally and re-caches it. Early Serve picks up again from the next visit onward. There’s nothing you need to do.

For most sites, Early Serve can simply be switched on and left alone. The built-in checks cover WooCommerce stores, membership sites and sites with forms. If your site relies on something that changes per visitor, such as content based on location or a custom cookie, mention it when you contact support so we can check it first.

• A page looks out of date. Clear the cache from Cache Engine, then reload the page. Early Serve always uses the latest cached copy.

• Someone sees content meant for a different visitor. Contact support right away so we can switch Early Serve off while we look into it.

• The site doesn’t feel faster. Early Serve only affects cached pages for logged-out visitors, so check while logged out or in a private window. Pages that are skipped, as listed above, load at normal speed.

If you’re still having trouble, contact our support team and we’ll be happy to help.