Caching of CMS Content in Salesforce Experience Cloud Sites

Salesforce Experience Cloud sites use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to cache CMS content.

Cache Duration

Customers have the ability to adjust the cache duration (time-to-live or TTL) of their CMS content that is published to a specific CMS channel. This can be done by following the steps provided in the Salesforce documentation: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=release-notes.rn_cms_channel_cache_duration.htm&release=242&type=5

Default Cache Duration

• Images and Documents: The default cache duration for content of this type is 720 hours (30 days).

• All Other Content Types: The cache duration is 1 hour and it can’t be changed.

Content Delivery Process

1. Initial Request: The first time content is requested, it is fetched from the origin server.

2. Caching: The retrieved content is then stored in the CDN's (Content Delivery Network) cache.

3. Subsequent Requests: Any further requests for the content are served directly from the CDN's cache, leading to faster load times.

4. Cache Expiration: The content remains in the CDN's cache and is served from there until its TTL expires.

Changing Cache Duration

When the cache duration for a CMS channel is modified, this new TTL will be applied to the content which is being fetched from the origin server, either as an initial content request(for newly published content) or when the old TTL expired.

Impact on Existing Cached Content

• Content in Standard Workspaces:

  • The TTL for content in Standard Workspaces that was already cached in the CDN before the cache duration change remains unaffected.

  • This means that even if a new version of the content is published, the CDN might continue to serve the outdated (stale) version.

  • One workaround would be to create completely new content and update the site to use the new content and republish the site so the new TTL will be applied to the content. 

• Content in Enhanced Workspaces:

  • For content in Enhanced Workspaces, the TTL will be updated whenever a new version of the content is published. For Media Content, if you use the URL returned from the Salesforce CMS API, it will include a version number to display the latest version.

  • If the customers are using standard OOTB components to display the content, the latest version of the content is displayed.

Key Points

• Caching improves website performance by serving content from the CDN instead of the origin server.

• Default cache durations vary based on content type.

• Changing cache duration only affects content cached after the change.

• The Delivery API will always return the latest version of content.

• The Delivery API for media in Enhanced Workspaces will return a URL to the latest published version and with the latest TTL settings.

Note: Occasionally, community sites may display outdated content. This could be because the content may be cached by a user's browser, as well as the CDN. If it is an issue with the user's browser, try clearing the browser’s cache to see if it resolves the issue.