Case study
Improving CDN hit rates for a custom web application
A custom web application can look well-configured at the CDN layer while still sending too much traffic back to the origin. The goal is to improve cache efficiency without breaking dynamic pages, sessions or user-specific content.
Context
A customer-owned web application was using a CDN, but most requests were still reaching the origin server.
The application had a mix of static assets, public pages, API routes and authenticated areas, so caching could not be changed globally without risk.
The problem
- Cache-control headers were inconsistent across static assets, public pages and application routes.
- Some assets were being revalidated too often, reducing CDN benefit and increasing origin load.
- Dynamic responses needed to be excluded from aggressive caching to avoid serving stale or user-specific content.
- The customer wanted better performance and lower origin pressure without introducing cache-related bugs.
Our approach
- Reviewed Cloudflare/CDN rules, origin response headers, cache-control behaviour and route patterns.
- Separated static assets, public cacheable routes and authenticated/dynamic responses.
- Adjusted cache rules and header recommendations so the CDN could cache safely where appropriate.
- Checked results using response headers, cache status, logs and repeat requests before recommending rollout steps.
Practical outcomes
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