What does Cache-Control: max-age specify for the HTML response?

What does Cache-Control: max-age specify for the HTML response?

• A. The resource must be revalidated every 3600 seconds.
• B. The resource is not cached at all.
• C. The response is cached indefinitely.
• D. The maximum time in seconds the response is considered fresh.

Answer: (D)

Cache-Control: max-age defines how long caches should keep a response before considering it stale. It sets the freshness lifetime in seconds. For an HTML response, max-age tells browsers and intermediate caches how long they can serve the cached page without re-fetching it from the server. For example, max-age=3600 means the HTML can be served from cache for one hour. After that window, the cache may revalidate or fetch a fresh copy. This does not mean the resource is never cached or that it’s cached indefinitely—those would require different values or directives. It also doesn’t mandate revalidation every hour; revalidation occurs only after the specified freshness period has expired.

Cache-Control: max-age defines how long caches should keep a response before considering it stale. It sets the freshness lifetime in seconds. For an HTML response, max-age tells browsers and intermediate caches how long they can serve the cached page without re-fetching it from the server. For example, max-age=3600 means the HTML can be served from cache for one hour. After that window, the cache may revalidate or fetch a fresh copy.

This does not mean the resource is never cached or that it’s cached indefinitely—those would require different values or directives. It also doesn’t mandate revalidation every hour; revalidation occurs only after the specified freshness period has expired.