Caching Score: https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/
Summary
GradeB
488/642
Requested URL checks
What is this check, and why should you care
Having a cache hit ensures the fastest possible delivery of content to end users.
The response header X-Cache had a value of TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-40-103-204.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/22.4.1-457a7ac92aced575f7fafeb6146c6a89) (-).
Akamai has documentation on how to interpret the X-Cache and X-Cache-Remote headers.
Maximum possible points
100
What is this check, and why should you care
Using a CDN is extremely useful for caching purposes.
Maximum possible points
50
What is this check, and why should you care
The time that it takes for a user's browser to receive the first byte of page content.
The lower the TTFB, the faster your site will be perceived by the end user.
To get maximum points, your TTFB must be less than or equal to 30ms. If your TTFB is more than 1 second then you get no points here.
Maximum possible points
50
What is this check, and why should you care
Using Last-Modified headers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-Modified-Since with a value of Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:20:52 GMT was sent, and an HTTP 304 was responded with.
Maximum possible points
30
What is this check, and why should you care
Having tiered caching can help improve the cache hit ratio of your site because it provides an additional layer of caching in front of your origin.
Maximum possible points
25
What is this check, and why should you care
Caching HTTP 404s is a great way to offload requests from your origin.
To get maximum points, you need to have the ability to cache an HTTP 404 for any amount of time.
This check requested the URL https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/cachingscorebrokenurltest.
Maximum possible points
20
What is this check, and why should you care
The purpose of HTTP compression is to reduce the size of the files sent by a CDN/web server by eliminating redundant information in those files. The smaller the size of the files, the more quickly they can be served over the World Wide Web.
On top of faster delivery, compression also reduces the amount of bandwidth used by the CDN/web server. This is especially important for mobile devices, where the bandwidth is often limited.
The response header Content-Encoding had a value of br.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Brotli compression.
See the Wikipedia page on HTTP compression for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to use Brotli or Zstandard compression.
Maximum possible points
20
What is this check, and why should you care
Akamai has very strict controls around cache tag lengths, counts and characters. If you exceed or break these controls then you risk your content not being invalidated when you issue a cache tag purge.
No issues were found.
See the Akamai technical documentation on how to interpret this header.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
CSS aggregation reduces the number of assets your site needs to download. The filename contains a hash of all the file contents, meaning you can cache these files for an extremely long time with no negative consequences.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Javascript aggregation reduces the number of assets your site needs to download. The filename contains a hash of all the file contents, meaning you can cache these files for an extremely long time with no negative consequences.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Drupal 9.5+ introduces a new debug setting to make it easier to debug render caching. This setting will add cache debugging output for each rendered element.
The main issue with this is that this slows down your page loads (on top increasing your page weight).
To get maximum points, you must disable the render cache debug.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Drupal 7+ provides a Statistics module to which records content view statistics in Drupal's database.
The main issue with this module is that it sends an un-cacheable HTTP POST request to your site to record a 'content view' statistic. This does not scale well as you Drupal site gets more traffic.
To get maximum points, you must disable the statistics module.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Drupal 8+ uses Twig for templating, and the Twig template engine offers a debug tool to which emits out a list of template filenames in the HTML source.
The main issue with this is that you often also have other Twig related performance issues as well, e.g. automatic reloading.
To get maximum points, you must disable Twig debug.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
You can increase the cache hit rate of your site by stripping certain query parameters from the cache key.
FBCLID is one such parameter that can be stripped by your caching server. This query parameter only really serves a purpose for Javascript to read, and Javascript can still read it from the browser URL.
This check requested the URL https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/?fbclid=1771161653.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
You can increase the cache hit rate of your site by stripping certain query parameters from the cache key.
GCLID and GCLSRC are two such parameters that can be stripped by your caching server. These query parameters only really serve a purpose for Javascript to read, and Javascript can still read it from the browser URL.
This check requested the URL https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/?gclsrc=1771161653&gclid=1771161653.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
You can increase the cache hit rate of your site by stripping certain query parameters from the cache key.
TTCLID is one such parameter that can be stripped by your caching server. This query parameter only really serves a purpose for Javascript to read, and Javascript can still read it from the browser URL.
This check requested the URL https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/?ttclid=1771161653.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
You can increase the cache hit rate of your site by stripping certain query parameters from the cache key.
UTM is a collection of parameters that can be stripped by your caching server. These query parameters only really serve a purpose for Javascript to read, and Javascript can still read them from the browser URL.
This check requested the URL https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/?utm_source=1771161653&utm_medium=1771161653&utm_campaign=1771161653&utm_id=1771161653.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
There is a SPAM protection module in Drupal called Honeypot.
The honeypot module has a feature that adds a time based hidden form field to forms to protect against bots filling them in too quickly. This is a nice feature, however it happens to disable caching for the entire page. This is terrible for high traffic sites.
It is recommended to disable this time based feature, and only use the core honeypot feature of a hidden input field.
Maximum possible points
5
What is this check, and why should you care
The language_cookie module breaks proxy caching because it makes Drupal’s response vary by a cookie, which most HTTP caches don’t handle efficiently.
The module also has a side effect of breaking Drupal’s page_cache system as well - see the issue #3512070.
To get maximum points, you must disable the language_cookie module.
Maximum possible points
5
What is this check, and why should you care
There are 2 filesystems in Drupal - public files and private files.
Private files force Drupal to bootstrap in order to serve the file, and access control is checked every single time. This is useful for sensitive files, but a hindrance when your site is under high load.
It is recommended to use Drupal's public file system for static, non-sensitive files, and reserve the use of private files for dynamic, or sensitive files.
Maximum possible points
5
What is this check, and why should you care
Using a long cache lifetime helps to ensure a high cache hit rate.
To get maximum points, your cache lifetime must be greater than or equal to 4 weeks. If your cache lifetime is less, then you will get some proportion of the score based on how close to 4 weeks you are.
The current cache lifetime is 899 seconds (14 minutes and 59 seconds).
Maximum possible points
100
What is this check, and why should you care
Using ETag identifiers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. This mechanism allows caches to be more efficient and saves bandwidth, as a Web server does not need to send a full response if the content has not changed. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-None-Match with a value of W/"1771161652" was sent, but an HTTP 304 was not responded with. So you have Etags, but they are not doing anything.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Etag support (requires login).
See the Wikipedia page on ETag for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to have ETag identifiers and an HTTP 304 response must be received when using a valid If-None-Match request header.
Maximum possible points
30
What is this check, and why should you care
Drupal 8+ provides an Internal Page Cache module recommended for small to medium-sized websites.
There is value in using this module, even when you are using Akamai, due to the low cache lifetime of 14 minutes and 59 seconds.
To get maximum points, you must enable the page_cache module, and have a HIT on Drupal's page cache.
See Drupal's documentation on the Internal Page Cache module. Also, Wim Leers wrote a really awesome blog post on the release of this module with important background.
Maximum possible points
20
Image checks
Performed on the asset: https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2017-09/ico-disabilities-72px.png
See the HTTP headers for this image file.
What is this check, and why should you care
Having a cache hit ensures the fastest possible delivery of content to end users.
The response header X-Cache had a value of TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-40-103-204.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/22.4.1-457a7ac92aced575f7fafeb6146c6a89) (-).
Akamai has documentation on how to interpret the X-Cache and X-Cache-Remote headers.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Using ETag identifiers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. This mechanism allows caches to be more efficient and saves bandwidth, as a Web server does not need to send a full response if the content has not changed. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-None-Match with a value of "59b61382-377" was sent, and an HTTP 304 was responded with.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Etag support (requires login).
See the Wikipedia page on ETag for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to have ETag identifiers and an HTTP 304 response must be received when using a valid If-None-Match request header.
Maximum possible points
3
What is this check, and why should you care
Using Last-Modified headers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-Modified-Since with a value of Mon, 11 Sep 2017 04:39:30 GMT was sent, and an HTTP 304 was responded with.
Maximum possible points
3
What is this check, and why should you care
Using a long cache lifetime helps to ensure a high cache hit rate.
To get maximum points, your cache lifetime must be greater than or equal to 4 weeks. If your cache lifetime is less, then you will get some proportion of the score based on how close to 4 weeks you are.
The current cache lifetime is 619836 seconds (1 week and 4 hours).
Maximum possible points
10
CSS checks
Performed on the asset: https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/css/css_xVgfjxc5yxk-57piwiqcfLyxhn7Fg0VG6VS452XOsUs.css?delta=0&language=en&theme=dhhs_thick&include=eJw1jNEKgCAMAH9o6CfJ1JXWcuG0rK8Pol4ODo4LUsnG2ndkgwsOiCmpaymH1c4sHhloNM5l_atPQS9ttFmPSnBkOtW-NJvEzgR3r95N0kvElqV8swdoIytS
See the HTTP headers for this CSS file.
What is this check, and why should you care
Having a cache hit ensures the fastest possible delivery of content to end users.
The response header X-Cache had a value of TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-40-103-204.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/22.4.1-457a7ac92aced575f7fafeb6146c6a89) (-).
Akamai has documentation on how to interpret the X-Cache and X-Cache-Remote headers.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Using Last-Modified headers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-Modified-Since with a value of Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:01:16 GMT was sent, and an HTTP 304 was responded with.
Maximum possible points
3
What is this check, and why should you care
The purpose of HTTP compression is to reduce the size of the files sent by a CDN/web server by eliminating redundant information in those files. The smaller the size of the files, the more quickly they can be served over the World Wide Web.
On top of faster delivery, compression also reduces the amount of bandwidth used by the CDN/web server. This is especially important for mobile devices, where the bandwidth is often limited.
The response header Content-Encoding had a value of br.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Brotli compression.
See the Wikipedia page on HTTP compression for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to use Brotli or Zstandard compression.
Maximum possible points
2
What is this check, and why should you care
Using a long cache lifetime helps to ensure a high cache hit rate.
To get maximum points, your cache lifetime must be greater than or equal to 4 weeks. If your cache lifetime is less, then you will get some proportion of the score based on how close to 4 weeks you are.
The current cache lifetime is 2062833 seconds (3 weeks and 2 days).
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Using ETag identifiers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. This mechanism allows caches to be more efficient and saves bandwidth, as a Web server does not need to send a full response if the content has not changed. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-None-Match with a value of W/"698923cc-13ed" was sent, but an HTTP 304 was not responded with. So you have Etags, but they are not doing anything.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Etag support (requires login).
See the Wikipedia page on ETag for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to have ETag identifiers and an HTTP 304 response must be received when using a valid If-None-Match request header.
Maximum possible points
3
Javascript checks
Performed on the asset: https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/js/js_jq5NGCdCBwWskjDYZiR_dAN52_FpuMk5zZoIXV5VDLg.js?scope=header&delta=0&language=en&theme=dhhs_thick&include=eJxdjUEOgCAMwD5E4ElkOBzIYAZHQny9HrjopUl7KaZ0eU15K45YArCJUzm34rCPE9guNSRCHL0COXrxdwsHzG-s5h49-F1GQ9AsbR0eHYgspw
See the HTTP headers for this Javascript file.
What is this check, and why should you care
Having a cache hit ensures the fastest possible delivery of content to end users.
The response header X-Cache had a value of TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-40-103-204.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/22.4.1-457a7ac92aced575f7fafeb6146c6a89) (-).
Akamai has documentation on how to interpret the X-Cache and X-Cache-Remote headers.
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Using Last-Modified headers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-Modified-Since with a value of Sun, 08 Feb 2026 23:59:38 GMT was sent, and an HTTP 304 was responded with.
Maximum possible points
3
What is this check, and why should you care
The purpose of HTTP compression is to reduce the size of the files sent by a CDN/web server by eliminating redundant information in those files. The smaller the size of the files, the more quickly they can be served over the World Wide Web.
On top of faster delivery, compression also reduces the amount of bandwidth used by the CDN/web server. This is especially important for mobile devices, where the bandwidth is often limited.
The response header Content-Encoding had a value of br.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Brotli compression.
See the Wikipedia page on HTTP compression for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to use Brotli or Zstandard compression.
Maximum possible points
2
What is this check, and why should you care
Using a long cache lifetime helps to ensure a high cache hit rate.
To get maximum points, your cache lifetime must be greater than or equal to 4 weeks. If your cache lifetime is less, then you will get some proportion of the score based on how close to 4 weeks you are.
The current cache lifetime is 2062832 seconds (3 weeks and 2 days).
Maximum possible points
10
What is this check, and why should you care
Using ETag identifiers is an easy way to ensure your visitors are always getting the most up-to-date version of the content. This mechanism allows caches to be more efficient and saves bandwidth, as a Web server does not need to send a full response if the content has not changed. HTTP 304 responses are used to indicate this is working.
An HTTP request with the request header If-None-Match with a value of W/"6989236a-1a2" was sent, but an HTTP 304 was not responded with. So you have Etags, but they are not doing anything.
Akamai has documentation on how to enable Etag support (requires login).
See the Wikipedia page on ETag for more background.
To get maximum points, you need to have ETag identifiers and an HTTP 304 response must be received when using a valid If-None-Match request header.
Maximum possible points
3
HTTP Response headers
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Status Code | HTTP 200 |
| Alt-Svc | h3=":443"; ma=93600 |
| Cache-Control | public, max-age=899 |
| Connection | keep-alive |
| Content-Encoding | br |
| Content-Language | en |
| Content-Length | 10917 |
| Content-Type | text/html; charset=UTF-8 |
| Date | Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:20:53 GMT |
| ETag | W/"1771161652" |
| Edge-Cache-Tag | 2itk2 6s6bq 3dbtv af2ls 3i77c 1ittq 5vtpi 3eh7a 2sge5 1cdfo 4hiv3 4l4ig 22p62 70td8 3bee6 uove7 6sl37 2brrb 1i6ou 9hvj9 598oe 40s1a 1qotg 5kv3g 54t8o 46o4k 4no0c gdqn1 63qfc 4cihq 7dmng 3ms11 1f027 4aubn pvqb4 54ngn ekveu 7hqnd 7nbk1 65lcu 6pq1s au955 5t285 6k5km 5cd6h 3f8h1 506tn 10a0c 66cdk 1icqp 5o7u3 qu5ak rlien 58h0l 7lj58 64a65 4atmv stfo2 384vp 3rlkr 31sni l80h3 6g03m 3db2k 5o4lj 1r4ej 6pkfq 7ra9e 2mcu9 3jlhi egt1t 5v3a0 5qpv1 621h4 hjfej 1iius 4edvc 7uo83 5drc9 4kjf2 27jgq 31d31 7n51b 55lje 3ran1 1ecmd 30thn 2ktsc 5b55u 7j28s 5ntqr 43a9d 6gij8 6o399 5c3cc 6uh77 46qmf 68a26 0pgup 737d0 21sol srfok 4u2ep 6o346 4fatq s45na 5hivj 7ublu 3sam3 2o885 223df 6trjb 87p7v 41pqm 4pldj 6mukr 21c2n 2ufu5 65s4v 78i1b 7j7l6 7gsv6 40q60 sjgh6 5vjb2 3pa8r 35e6r 27lv1 6q9id 1umdk 7g4uo 7220q 10lrc 4t0tp 1li4i 4lolv 58qc4 2pnl4 4b2fj 3p1me 3k3ec 7l74c 1b85h 23gt3 325ai 66cre 3o6ii bgvpd 5f0p4 74b1j 55crg 7m7rq 7ecnf vc6hf 5r15h 3rhoc 18qfp 5mi6r 6huab 50seg 1igng 4kg6f 69cb4 5oqpr 3cm4c 43vi8 5a503 4g25a 1ni1e 7d170 7c5f2 4kke1 4kplh 7r0pa 4pn19 1iof0 nrva0 05u6a 1tf0v 385ra 14atp oivrr 3nt0l 60g1i 6skr3 6lhur 1i9ki 6mb9f 7b75o 1dedi 6enam of01s 2bte0 k0vi3 2ho6e 7p3ii 7nhuv 6bjth 57mh3 5a0ht 2dinn 2kt1b 5m20o 17lsg fkjun 6escc 1338r 2lm2d 3a1ig 4m8l9 |
| Expires | Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:35:52 GMT |
| Last-Modified | Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:20:52 GMT |
| X-Cache | TCP_MEM_HIT from a23-40-103-204.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (AkamaiGHost/22.4.1-457a7ac92aced575f7fafeb6146c6a89) (-) |
| X-Cache-Key | S/L/111970/1175038/1d/services.dffh.vic.gov.au/ |
| X-Cache-Key-Extended-Internal-Use-Only | S/L/111970/1175038/1d/services.dffh.vic.gov.au/ vcd=6147 |
| X-Check-Cacheable | YES |
| X-Drupal-Dynamic-Cache | HIT |
| X-Lagoon | amazeeio-govcms6>sigsci-ingress-nginx>services-dhhsvic-master:nginx> |
If you want to do this yourself
You can use the following cURL command:
curl -sLIXGET -H 'Pragma: akamai-x-cache-on, akamai-x-cache-remote-on, akamai-x-check-cacheable, akamai-x-get-cache-key, akamai-x-get-cache-tags' -H 'Accept-Encoding: br, zstd, gzip, deflate' 'https://services.dffh.vic.gov.au/' | sort