Siteoften

Siteoften is a term used in web performance optimization to describe a set of practices for aligning the cadence of site updates with caching strategies to maximize both freshness and efficiency. It is not tied to a single product or standard; instead, it encompasses decisions across deployment pipelines, content management systems, CDNs, and reverse proxies to reduce origin fetches while keeping content timely.

Key techniques associated with siteoften include defining update cadences for sections or pages, implementing cache invalidation policies that reflect content changes, pre-warming caches for anticipated traffic, and using delta publication to minimize data transfer. The approach aims to balance the cost of updating content with the benefit of delivering fresh pages to users.

Common use cases include news and media sites, ecommerce catalogs with frequent inventory changes, and portals that serve personalized content, where balancing update latency and delivery costs is important. In practice, siteoften relies on telemetry to model access patterns and may employ standards such as cache-control headers and stale-while-revalidate, along with CDN-specific rules.

Adoption and evaluation of siteoften vary by organization. Proponents argue that disciplined cadences can reduce peak load and improve perceived performance, while critics warn that incorrect timing can produce stale content or unnecessary resource usage. As with many caching and delivery strategies, successful implementation depends on accurate traffic modeling and clear governance over content publish workflows.

See also: Cache invalidation, Content delivery network, Web caching, Stale-while-revalidate.