Maximize caching/cacheability to reduce bandwidth on origin server

Hi,
Have you enabled a smart tiered cache inside your Cloudflare dashboard? Cause it can significantly increase your cache HIT ratio.

Also, I checked your high traffic site and most pages came as cache HIT.

Furthermore, I can see that you are using WP Engine, so it is quite possible that their cache implementation is hampering a bit.

If you ask me for my recommendation (which you might not like), I would highly recommend you to switch to BigScoots and try their WordPress Speed Optimization service where you will get a much higher cache HIT ratio along with Cloudflare Enterprise services. This is just my suggestion.

Interesting. So using WP Engine interferes with Cloudflare caching? Do you have any other insight on that? Does WP Engine’s cache implementation somehow bypass or override the caching from Cloudflare?

P.S. I did enable smart tiered cache yesterday and today the Percent Cached value has gone up to 48.84% over the last 7 days. Too early to say how impactful it is, but it does seem to have had some effect already.

Yes, if you are using their Cloudflare Enterprise then all your traffic is routed via them and whatever conditions that they have made in place. Also, I did see that the cache-control header was being changed by the server.

Feel free to continue your testing.

Apologies for being a noob, but I’m trying my best to learn how this works. I really appreciate your help on this.

Here’s how I have it configured on my end:
Request -> My Cloudflare (CF) which is proxied -> WP Engine Advanced Network (their CF) -> WP Engine dedicated server

WP Engine is forcing people to use their new “Advanced Network” (i.e. point through their CF). Unfortunately, their CF is set up generically and doesn’t cache things as effectively like this SPCFC plugin. As such, we have been using the SPCFC plugin to cache HTML pages in our Cloudflare account.

Are you saying that WP Engine is somehow altering the cache control headers and that is causing some of the traffic to bypass my CF account?

Hi @kizinko,
When you pass your requests through WP Engine’s Cloudflare account then your account becomes only a vessel to hold the DNS as all the cache settings and operations are setup by WP Engine system.

Check this thread: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/test-cache-is-showing-en-error/ which has a similar situation with quick cloud.

@isaumya, thank you for the follow up! My situation is a bit different from the one you linked to. They aren’t enabling the CF proxy in their account, but I am. I’m required by WP Engine to point to their “Advanced Network” which is just their enterprise CF account, but I still have my CF proxy enabled in my account so I can use this SPCFC plugin.

That’s why I was confused to hear that WP Engine would somehow be altering the CF cache control headers.

Can you share a screenshot of your DNS section? Cause now your site is staying cached in your account and also being cached by WP Engine Cloudflare account.

@isaumya, sure! Here you go: https://tinyurl.com/23laua9l.

Yes as I expected you are using WP Engine Cloudflare Enterprise network with O2O. So, both your Cloudflare account and the wp engine Cloudflare enterprise account are active and doing it’s own settings and cache operations.

It’s better to cache the content in WP Engine CF ENT account than yours as it’s an ENT account and has higher cache lifespan.

That all makes sense. Again, thank you for all your help on this. It’s super enlightening!

Just so I fully understand, are you saying that there is a compatibility issue with using both? I realize it’s redundant, but there are significant benefits if I can make it work.

The issue with un-proxying my CF account is that we are then relying on the caching and security settings from WP Engine (which are less aggressive than SPCFC). Another issue is that they don’t purge their whole cache when someone publishes or updates a page, so it can cause issues when my clients make updates to custom post types and those updates are not reflected on other URLs around the website.

Let me know if you can think of any way we could potentially use both. Normally, I’d revert to WP Engine’s legacy DNS settings so we’re not using their CF-based “Advanced Network”, but they are phasing out legacy settings and forcing everyone over to the advanced network in their CF enterprise account.

So, the method that you are using is called O2O and yes there can be severe compatibility issues if they are not set properly. I completely understand the issues you have with WP Engine CF ENT which is why I suggested you to switch to BigScoots where you would not have these problems.

In the world of Cloudflare O2O is a very complicated thing and should not be just randomly enabled. It should be managed and handled with care and only should be enabled by the company giving you CF ENT service.

Otherwise you will have double caching layer causing significant issues.

@isaumya, understood. Thank you again for all your help looking into this for me!

No problem. Happy to help. ??