Glossary · HTTP, edge and rendering

edge cache

What edge cache means

A copy of a response stored at a CDN's point of presence and served to later requests for the same key without consulting the origin. It is keyed on the URL, so a request with an unfamiliar query string usually misses it; the copy can outlive a deleted path, a changed file or an origin that has started refusing, and nothing about the bare URL reveals which.

How CrawlCheck measures edge cache

3 finding codes in the scanner read this. The share of all scans carrying each is computed from the live corpus when this page is served, not typed into it.

Every code, its rule and its current rate: the dataset page. Scan a site to see which apply to it.

Where edge cache comes up on this site

• How to block AI crawlers, and what each block costs youA 200 with your actual content means the rule did not apply — usually because it was written at a layer the request never reached, or because an edge cache answered before the rule ran.
• How to read a CrawlCheck report: the grade, the three stages, the fix list and the evidenceEvidence holds the transcript of every machine-file fetch (status, content type, bytes, edge cache state), the report’s SHA-256 digest and how to cite it.
• Cached robots.txt and llms.txt: stale, split, or blockedWhy one fetch is not enough An edge cache is keyed on the URL.
• Is your host blocking ClaudeBot? Group the 403s by IP firstThose were fixed by putting the machine files behind an edge cache, so the high-frequency endpoints stop touching the origin at all.
• When an LLM summarises your audit report and gets the grade wrongThat scan carried exactly one finding, of medium severity: the homepage was served from an edge cache copy nearly four hours old.

Related terms in HTTP, edge and rendering

The delivery layer between an origin and a client: proxies, caches, redirects, status codes and the headers that decide what a crawler actually received.

Origin server · Reverse proxy · CDN · Edge node · WAF · Bot score · TLS handshake · DNS resolution · DNS timeout · Connection timeout · Read timeout · Redirect chain · Redirect loop · 301 redirect · 302 redirect · 307 redirect · 308 redirect · 304 response · 404 response · 410 response · 429 response · 500 response · 502 response · 503 response · 504 response · HEAD request · GET request · Content type · MIME sniffing · Content encoding · Compression · Brotli · ETag · Last-Modified · If-None-Match · Cache hit · Cache miss · Cache key · Vary header · Stale response · Stale-while-revalidate · Edge redirect · Origin bypass · Response parity · Header parity · hreflang · canonical URL · HSTS · HSTS preload list · Content-Security-Policy · CSP nonce · cache split · cache-buster · Cache-Control · Age header · render-blocking resource · payload text share · lazy loading · 404 and 410 status codes

Questions about edge cache

What is edge cache?

A copy of a response stored at a CDN's point of presence and served to later requests for the same key without consulting the origin.

What does edge cache not show or guarantee?

A copy of a response stored at a CDN's point of presence and served to later requests for the same key without consulting the origin. It is keyed on the URL, so a request with an unfamiliar query string usually misses it; the copy can outlive a deleted path, a changed file or an origin that has started refusing, and nothing about the bare URL reveals which.

How does CrawlCheck measure edge cache?

Through the finding codes STALE_CACHE_SERVED, ORIGIN_BLOCKED_BEHIND_CACHE, MACHINE_FILE_CACHE_STALE, each with a stated rule, evidence bytes and a live share of scans on the dataset page.

Which area of the glossary does edge cache belong to?

HTTP, edge and rendering: The delivery layer between an origin and a client: proxies, caches, redirects, status codes and the headers that decide what a crawler actually received.

← CSP nonce  ·  cache split →

See it in the full glossary · 668 terms across 19 areas.