Short TTLs do not keep content fresh

Short TTLs do not keep content fresh
A Berlin news site set a 30-second TTL everywhere, convinced low numbers meant fresh content. Their origin was melting under revalidation traffic and Frankfurt readers still saw stale headlines.
The myth: low TTL equals fresh. The reality: with 30s expiry, every edge node hammered origin constantly, and a slow revalidation served stale anyway.
What we changed: we set a 1-hour TTL with stale-while-revalidate, and wired an instant purge call into their publish button. Freshness became event-driven, not clock-driven.
Result: origin requests fell 71%, cache-hit ratio climbed from 62% to 93%, and new articles appeared globally in under 4 seconds of clicking publish.
Don't guess with a timer. Purge on the event that actually changes the content.
The number that mattered: 71% drop in origin requests.