Memcached is a distributed memory object caching platform, which is used to optimize the performance of database-powered Internet sites by caching the requests and the replies between the visitor and the server. To put it simply, every time a particular page on such a website is visited, the script connects to its database to fetch the information that should be shown to the website visitor. In case the latter clicks a link to open some other web page, the whole procedure is repeated and this results in numerous database requests and high load on the server, even more so if the site has lots of simultaneous visitors. Memcached "memorizes" this exchange of information, so in case any of these pages is accessed again, the script no longer needs to pull any information from the database, since everything is delivered by the caching platform. Thus, the overall loading speed of your website will "soar" and you will enjoy more pleased visitors and they will be able to browse your site faster. Furthermore, the Memcached platform "refreshes" its cache whenever any content in the database is edited, so the site users will never end up seeing old content.