Caching Static Files Through Web.config

1 min read ASP.NET

When running my website through Google Page Insights, one of things I didn't do was cache static content, such as CSS, JavaScript and site images. Since I am on a shared hosting plan, I didn't think it was possible to have the option to cache a specific directory without direct IIS access.

Normally, when working on client sites hosted on a dedicated server, I set the cache header within "HTTP Response Headers" area in IIS. But all this actually does is generate a web.config file within the directory you wish to cache:

<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?-->
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <httpProtocol>
            <customHeaders>
                <add name="Cache-Control" value="public, max-age=604800" />
            </customHeaders>
        </httpProtocol>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

So if you too are on shared hosting, add a web.config file with similar settings. In this case, I have cached my files for a week.

You can also set the cache settings in your main web.config file by wrapping a location path around the <system.webServer> node:

<location path="resources">
  <system.webServer>
        <httpProtocol>
            <customHeaders>
                <add name="Cache-Control" value="public, max-age=604800" />
            </customHeaders>
        </httpProtocol>
    </system.webServer>
 </location>