What is the difference between HTTP status code 200 (cache) vs status code 304?

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I’m using the Google “Page Speed” plug-in for Firefox to access my web site.

Some of the components on my page is indicated as HTTP status:

200
200 (cache)
304

By Google’s “Page Speed”.

What I’m confused about is the difference between 200 (cache) and 304.

I’ve refreshed the page multiple times (but have not cleared my cache) and it always seems that my favicon.ico and a few images are status=200 (cache) while some other images are http status 304.

I don’t understand why the difference.

UPDATE:

Using Google “Page Speed”, I receive a “200 (cache)” for http://example.com/favicon.ico as well as http://cdn.example.com/js/ga.js

But, I receive a http status “304” for http://cdn.example.com/js/combined.min.js

I don’t understand why I have two JavaScript files located in the same directory /js/, one returning a http status 304 and the other returning a 200 (cache) status code.

5 Answers
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