Yes, if you’re talking content changes to the pages themselves those are usually not set up to cache and users will see those changes. It’s just site functionality or layout changes that usually cause problems. It wouldn’t hurt to double check the response headers on your base page to make sure they aren’t being cached but it is pretty rare for them to be.
I failed to mention, the page where most of the changes are going to occur is being split tested. We use PHP to do random rotations so if we need to make big changes, we would simply place the new page into the php array for the rotation - this should prevent issues with certain page elements not showing.
Nice discussion…
HostGator does not have mod_deflate enabled on their shared servers. They claim that it would tax the cpu. They do however do a good job of managing their servers and monitoring cpu usage and will quickly suspend you if you are using more than your share of resources.
After jumping to several shared hosting companies I prefered bluehost.com the best for customer service and speed. They also allowed me to run a script up to 50min from a cron! ( I had to have their static IP)
bluehost.com offer a CPANEL and low rates and not to forget, CPU throttellng to prevent a meltdown.
My present hosting company is small, so for a shared plan, doesn’t have 24/7 support, but are well priced and do not throw 1000’s of customers on a server. Check them out for a small intimate company www.securewebs.com
Is this page using gzip? It’s hosted with hostgator and i’d done work on the site - thought i added gzip.
recent gzipped result:
http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110714_X6_0a9acff36980f709483c9956156ba4be/
old ungzipped:
http://www.webpagetest.org/result/101222_YQ_5C42/
Yep. Are you on their shared hosting or VPS?
Shared hosting.
I think gzip was added via the ‘optimize website’ option in cpanel. Not positive as i didn’t have direct access to the site. Here is the htaccess file I’d given them:
http://www.jesseo.com/chesspub/htaccess.txt
Sorry, that was an “OR” question 
Which plan or service do you subscribe to? Historically they have allowed gzip for the VPS plans but not their shared hosting.
Hatchling plan. In cpanel, we used “Optimise Website” and then ‘Compress all content’.
…and posted the above htaccess file (maybe not necessary).