What headers are

Headers are short notes the server sends before the page itself: content type, caching rules, cookies and security settings.

Caching and content

Cache-Control and related headers decide how long browsers and CDNs keep a copy. Wrong values show up as stale pages or needless load on the server.

Security headers

Headers such as Strict-Transport-Security and Content-Security-Policy protect visitors. A missing one is not an error, but it is worth knowing about.