W3 total cache caches pages for HTTPS 'uniquely' what does that mean?

Question

W3 total cache reads:

Cache SSL (https) requests Cache SSL requests (uniquely) for improved performance.

now i want hard caching for all pages, if https or not, that always a cached version is returned. Thing is, i cannot disable https for the pages, as we would be ranking lower on google, as non https gives you a penalty nowadays.

what does this sentence really mean?

Answer 1

Short version: this means that the page caching rules will not cache HTTPS specific pages by default. So (http : // example . com / page1) would be cached but (https :// example.com / page2) would not be.
Making this true then cause the cache to automatically create a specific SSL version of the page cache.

By default the option is set to false:

'pgcache.cache.ssl' => array(
        'type' => 'boolean',
        'default' => false

If set to true then:

/**
         * Set HTTPS
         */
        if ( $config->get_boolean( 'pgcache.cache.ssl' ) ) {
            $rules .= "    RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =on\n";
            $rules .= "    RewriteRule .* - [E=W3TC_SSL:_ssl]\n";
            $rules .= "    RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} =443\n";
            $rules .= "    RewriteRule .* - [E=W3TC_SSL:_ssl]\n";
            $env_W3TC_SSL = '%{ENV:W3TC_SSL}';
        }