Implications of extending browser caching for Google?

[chrisvogel]

I have been asked to leverage browser caching on a few scripts in our code.

• http://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=GTM-KBQ7B5 (16 minutes 22 seconds)
• http://www.google.com/jsapi (1 hour)
• https://www.google-analytics.com/plugins/ua/linkid.js (1 hour)
• https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js (2 hours)
• https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api (expiration not specified)
• https://ssl.google-analytics.com/ga.js (2 hours)

The number beside each link is the expiration for cache applied by the owners.  I'm being asked to extend the time to 24 hours. Part of this task is to make sure doing this is a good idea. It would not be in our best interest to do something that would disrupt the collection of data.

Some of what I'm seeing is recommending having a local copy which would mean missing updates from ga/gtm or call for the creation of a cron job to download any updates on a daily basis.

Another concern is would caching these have a delay/disruption in collecting data? That's an unknown to me – may not be to you.

There is also the concern that Google recommends not caching outside of their settings.

Any help on this is much appreciated.

Do you see any issues/risks/benefits/etc. to doing this from your perspective?

[chrisvogel]

Thanks, this is super helpful

[DannyHoodless]

You wouldn't disrupt the collection of data, but you would need to run a cron job to keep updating it. It is not recommended that you store Google analytics locally & honestly it would make little difference to your speed and is more trouble than it's worth. Caching is not recommended by Google for a reason.

All though if your page speed is healthy your really have nothing to worry about. If your concern is just trying to get 100/100 on the page tests i have heard that this does the trick:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module/filter-make-google-analytics-async#description

Danny