Introducing FastPixel Global Cache: Faster Pages Worldwide (Beta)

Here’s something most site owners don’t think about: where their visitors are.

Picture someone in Sydney opening a website hosted in the US. Before the page can appear, their request has to travel across the Pacific, wait for the server, and make the trip back.

Even a fast server can’t remove that distance. The farther your visitor is from it, the more latency gets added.

In other words, you can’t optimize your way out of geography.

But you can move your pages closer to your visitors. That’s exactly what Global Cache does, and we’re opening it up to a small group of FastPixel users for beta testing.

Quick heads-up: Global Cache is currently in beta. It’s free for invited beta testers while we test it. We’re still refining the feature, and we’d love your feedback.

Let’s break it down.

Table of Contents

So… what is Global Cache, exactly?

Global Cache is a new HTML edge caching layer in FastPixel.

That’s a mouthful, so here’s the plain-English version: it keeps copies of your public pages on FastPixel’s global CDN network, which spans over 119 locations, and serves visitors from a location close to them instead of sending every request back to your origin server.

Your visitor in Sydney no longer has to wait for every page request to make the full round trip to a server in the US, it will be delivered directly from Sydney.

The result: noticeably faster page delivery for visitors far from where your site is hosted.

Pages that need to stay dynamic, such as carts, checkouts, and logged-in sessions, continue to load directly from your website. We’ll get to those in a minute.

Don’t take our word for it

Speed claims are easy to make, so we’d rather you test this yourself.

PageVitals has a free, independent TTFB Tester that checks your site’s Time to First Byte from 40 locations around the world. TTFB is simply how long it takes for the first byte of a response to reach the browser.

See fastpixel.io’s TTFB around the world →

The link opens with fastpixel.io already filled in. Replace it with your own URL, run the test, and save the results. You’ll use them again after Global Cache is enabled.

How does it work?

Think of Global Cache as opening local branches of your website all over the world.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

Your public pages get cached across FastPixel’s global CDN network.
A visitor opens your site and gets the cached copy from a location close to them instead of waiting for the request to travel back to your origin server.
When you update something, you can refresh the cache yourself: Purge URL for a single page, Purge Cache for the whole site. Pages get cached again as visitors come back.

That’s it. Nothing changes for your visitors. The page simply has a much shorter trip to make.

What “beta” means (and why it matters)

We want to be upfront about this.

Global Cache is currently available to invited beta testers and is free to use during the beta. We’re still refining the feature, and the feedback we get during this stage will help shape the wider release.

Since it’s still in beta, we recommend starting with a staging or sandbox copy of your site if you have one. Once you’re happy with how everything behaves, you can move on to your live site.

How to turn on Global Cache

FastPixel’s regular setup doesn’t require you to change your DNS. Global Cache is different: because traffic needs to reach the global caching layer, setup includes adding two DNS records.

It sounds technical, but it’s mostly copy and paste. Before you start, make sure you have:

your website already connected to FastPixel
access to your domain’s DNS settings
your website server’s IP address

Our Global Cache guide covers every step, plus the most common errors and how to fix them.

What gets cached (and what doesn’t)

Global Cache is built for public pages that can safely show the same cached version to different visitors: your homepage, blog posts, landing pages, and similar content.

Anything that needs to stay live gets skipped automatically, including:

logged-in users and active sessions
WordPress admin and login pages
previews, search results, feeds and sitemaps
carts, checkout, account pages and payment flows

So shoppers and logged-in users continue to receive live pages, while regular visitors get the cached version whenever possible.

And even on those dynamic pages, your images, CSS and JS still come from our global CDN, so they load faster anyway.

Now run the test again

Remember that “before” result? Time to use it.

Once your dashboard says Global Cache is fully configured, head back to the PageVitals TTFB Tester, enter your URL, and compare the results region by region.

Pay particular attention to locations farthest from your origin server. That’s usually where the effect of reducing that round trip is easiest to see.

Pages are cached as visitors request them, so a test immediately after setup or a purge may still hit an uncached page. Run the test again once the page has been requested and compare the results.

Tell us how it went

You’re one of the first people to try Global Cache, and that makes your feedback especially useful.

We’d love to hear about your before-and-after results, pages that didn’t behave as expected, setup steps that felt confusing, or any errors you ran into.

Use our contact form to reach out and we will be happy to help with any issues you encounter!

FAQs

What is FastPixel Global Cache?

Global Cache is a new CDN-based HTML edge caching feature in FastPixel. It caches your site’s pages at server locations around the world, so visitors load your site from a location near them instead of your origin server. That helps pages load faster for visitors far from where your site is hosted.

Is Global Cache different from FastPixel’s regular caching?

Yes. FastPixel already caches optimized versions of your pages as part of its regular optimization workflow. Global Cache adds an additional caching layer for public HTML pages across our global network, reducing how often requests need to reach your origin server and making everything a lot faster.

Is it really free?

Yes. Global Cache is free to use for invited testers while the feature is in beta.

Will this affect dynamic pages, like my cart or account pages?

Global Cache is built for public pages, so logged-in areas, cart, checkout and other personalized pages still generate dynamically. Your customers always see accurate, up-to-date information. That said, the images, CSS and JS assets on those pages are still served from our global CDN, so even dynamic pages benefit from faster asset loading.

How do I turn it on?

We recommend starting on a staging or sandbox site while Global Cache is in beta. Open the activation link from your invitation email, then go to Connect Website > globe icon > Global Cache. You’ll enter your server IP address and add two DNS records: a CNAME for Global Cache and a TXT record for SSL. Our Global Cache guide walks through the full setup.

How often does the cache update after I publish new content?

The Global Cache gets purged automatically when FastPixel normally purges the cache, so everytime you update a page, post, or content in general, the cache gets purged automatically. You can also purge the cache manually from the plugin and Global Cache will be purged too!

Since this is beta, is it safe to use on a live site?

Since Global Cache is still in beta, we recommend testing it on a staging or sandbox site first when possible. If you enable it on a live site, keep an eye on your important pages afterward and let us know if anything behaves unexpectedly.

How do I report bugs or give feedback?

Use our contact form and let us know what happened, we’ll be happy to help!