What's the best way to version CSS and JS URLs?

Posted by David Eyk on Pro Webmasters See other posts from Pro Webmasters or by David Eyk
Published on 2010-11-05T13:31:51Z Indexed on 2012/11/03 5:27 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 286

Filed under:

static-content

|

cache-control

As per Yahoo's much-ballyhooed Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Site, we serve up static content from a CDN using far-future cache expiration headers. Of course, we need to occasionally update these "static" files, so we currently add an infix version as part of the filename (based on the SHA1 sum of the file contents). Thus:

styles.min.css

Becomes:

styles.min.abcd1234.css

However, managing the versioned files can become tedious, and I was wondering if a GET argument notation might be cleaner and better:

styles.min.css?v=abcd1234

Which do you use, and why? Are there browser- or proxy/cache-related considerations that I should consider?

© Pro Webmasters or respective owner

Related posts about static-content

Static content on Wicket application served from OSGi HTTP Service

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm developing a web application that is going to be served from an OSGi HTTP service, I register it using a WicketServlet, and I don't know how to serve static files (CSS, JS, images and so). How could I mount a directory as a resource with the static content? Or should I configure the resource… >>> More
Serving static content from cookie less domain and mod_deflate

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have two domain. One domain with my main website and the other with js/css/etc.. files, static content. mod_deflate is enabled for both domains, but when i run ySlow in FireFox it says none of my static content is compressed. When i bring back the js or css file to my normal domain it gets compressed… >>> More
Serving static content from cookie less domain and mod_deflate

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have two domain. One domain with my main website and the other with js/css/etc.. files, static content. mod_deflate is enabled for both domains, but when i run ySlow in FireFox it says none of my static content is compressed. When i bring back the js or css file to my normal domain it gets compressed… >>> More
Intellij + GWT 2: Development Mode ignores changes to static content

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The new Development Mode in GWT 2 is awesome, but unfortunately as launched from Intellij IDEA 9, it does not seem to notice changes made to static files such as html, css, etc. It immediately see changes in *.java files, but not the static ones. If I make a change in a static file I need to quite… >>> More
Optimized throughput of static content from app server

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am building a small web application that primarily needs to serve up protected static content -- some flash (.swf) files 20MB -- from an application server (Websphere) that is front ended by a web server (Apache). Are there there any Websphere configuration settings that I should consider to optimized… >>> More

Related posts about cache-control

How does one set multiple cache-control directives in ASP.NET

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have to have several certain cache-control directives set on an ASP.NET page in order to pass a Hailstorm security scan. For example, it wants me to have Cache-control: no-cache="set-cookie" in addition to Cache-control: no-cache I have been setting the latter with the following line in my C# codebehind: Response… >>> More
Help create a unit test for test response header, specifically Cache-Control, in determining if cach

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Scenario: I have a base controller which disables caching within the OnActionExecuting override. protected override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) { filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1)); filterContext.HttpContext.Response… >>> More
Cache-Control and Expires doesn't Work

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I set up cache-control and expires headers via .htaccess but already it doesn't load from browser cache. When i enter the uri, i am waitting for load from web site. URI: http://www.btgmaslak.com/static/images/main_container_background_11.jpg >>> More
Login screen appears even if logged in

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
HEHE it's a stupid problem, for those who care place the following on the load event of the master page or default Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); //HTTP 1.1 Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "private"); // HTTP 1.1 Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control"… >>> More
Ajax cache control

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I am having a problem with ajax requests in Internet Explorer and in Chrome - I cannot bust the cache. Normal pages don't have the problem - it's just the ajax requests. I know that one workaround is to append a random query string variable to the end of the URL. However, I don't want to… >>> More