Check 19 of 23 · Can AI tell what is current?

Your server says when the page changed

Your server can send a tiny note with each page saying when it last changed. That lets robots ask "anything new?" cheaply, so they come back more often.

  • Who fixes itYou, or your web person
  • TimeAbout 15 minutes
  • Worth2 of 100 points
  • How sure we areLikely

What this is

Every time a browser or robot asks for your page, your server sends the page plus a few lines of hidden notes. These notes are called headers. Two of them are about change:

  • Last-Modified is a date. “This page last changed on this day.”
  • ETag is a short code. It changes whenever the page changes. Think of it as a fingerprint.

Together they let a robot ask a cheap question next time: “Is it still the same as before?” If the answer is yes, your server sends a tiny reply instead of the whole page.

Why it matters to you

Robots have a budget. Every full download costs them time. A site that lets them check for changes cheaply gets checked more often. A site that makes them download everything every time gets visited less.

This is a 2-point check. It is nice to have, but it will not make or break your score, and many perfectly good small sites miss it because the platform simply does not send the headers on HTML pages.

What we look for

We look at the headers your homepage sends.

  • Pass: both Last-Modified and ETag are present.
  • Warn: one of the two is present.
  • Fail: neither is present.

Whether you can fix this yourself

Probably not without a web person. Headers come from the server or the platform, not from your page editor.

On Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and SimplePractice, the platform decides what headers to send. You cannot change them. If you see a warn or fail on one of those, let it go.

On WordPress, a caching plugin or a CDN (a service that sits in front of your site, like Cloudflare) can add these for you. That is a settings change, not a code change, but it is easy to get wrong.

How to fix it

WordPress

  1. If you use a caching plugin (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache), look in its settings for “browser caching” or “ETag.” Turn it on.
  2. If your site is behind Cloudflare, headers are usually added on their end. Check that “Browser Cache TTL” is not set to “Respect existing headers” with no headers to respect.
  3. Ask your host. Many managed WordPress hosts add these at the server level and can tell you in one email.

Squarespace or Wix

There is nothing to do, because the platform owns this.

Shopify

There is nothing to do, because Shopify sends its own headers.

Your own site or a developer

Enable Last-Modified and ETag on HTML responses. Most web servers do this for static files by default. For pages built on the fly, the app has to set them. On Apache, FileETag and mod_expires are the usual switches. On Nginx, etag on; is the default for static files. Most hosts and CDNs have a switch for this.

How to check it worked

The simplest way is a free header checker. Search the web for “http header checker,” paste your homepage address, and look for Last-Modified and ETag in the list. Then run the free check again.

If you are comfortable with a terminal:

curl -sI https://yourbusiness.com/ | grep -iE 'last-modified|etag'

Do not worry about

An ETag that looks like random letters is normal. That is the fingerprint doing its job. It does not need to be readable by a person.