Exclude a Page or Cookie from Nginx Server Caching

Step 2.1: Create your page excludes

Creating cache exclusions is a relatively simple process. Below we’ll look that the different types of exclusions you can create.

NOTE: The following needs adding to your server inside either a website-specific config or a server-level config as detailed in steps 2.1 and 2.2 below this section.

EXCLUDE A SINGLE PAGE

Below shows the basic structure for making page exclusion, and you simply need to switch out “/examplepage/” with your desired page:

if ($request_uri ~* "(/examplepage/)") {
 set $skip_cache 1;
 set $skip_reason "${skip_reason}-request_uri";
}

If the page is served with both trailing slash (site.url/examplepage/) and non-trailing slash (site.url/examplepage), you should modify the condition with an asterisk to cater both cases like this:

if ($request_uri ~* "(/examplepage.*)") {

You can also give a specific reason, by switching out “${skip_reason}” with the reason you’re excluding this page. For example:

set $skip_reason "login-request_uri"; 

EXCLUDE MULTIPLE PAGES

You can exclude multiple pages from the cache like this:

if ($request_uri ~* "(/examplepage/|/another-page/|/third-page/)") {
 set $skip_cache 1;
 set $skip_reason "${skip_reason}-request_uri";
}

WILDCARD EXCLUSIONS

If you want to exclude a parent page plus all child pages, or an entire CPT (or whatever your use case), you can create a wildcard exclude like this:

if ($request_uri ~* "(/parent-page.*)") {
 set $skip_cache 1;
 set $skip_reason "${skip_reason}-request_uri";
}

TARGETING THE HOMEPAGE

Targeting the homepage isn’t intuitive at first glance and use cases for it are rare (generally it is the most visited page of any website so it is better cached whenever possible). If you do need to exclude the homepage, here is how to specifically target it:

if ($request_uri ~ ^/$) {
set $skip_cache 1;
set $skip_reason "${skip_reason}-your_cookie";
}

The dollar sign $ is important here as signals the end of the string and ensures that all of your other pages don’t match the rule.