How to clear your web cache

When you are having issues viewing the very latest version of your website after making an update, caching is often the root cause. Most servers run high levels of caching to ensure web visitors get the fastest experience possible. The trade-off is that when you are making changes to your website, there can be a delay of a few hours before the changes are reflected on your browser. Please note that first time visitors to the website are usually not impacted.

One simple option is to allow a few hours to pass and then try re-loading your website. Or try a different web browser, device or internet connection.

What is cache?

There are generally five layers of cache:

Website Cache – A site cache or page cache stores website data the first time a webpage is loaded. Each time a user returns to your website, saved elements are quickly accessed and displayed to visitors.

Browser Cache – Browser caching is a type of site caching built into the end-user’s web browser. Website elements are stored by the browser on your visitor’s computer and grouped with other files associated with your content. A browser cache can contain HTML pages, CSS stylesheets, images, and other multimedia content.

Server Cache – Server cache is an umbrella term covering a number of different types of caching. This includes Content Delivery Network (CDN) caching, object caching, and opcode caching. Each stores different content on your website’s server.

DNS Cache – DNS caching allows any DNS server or client to locally store the DNS records and re-use them in the future – eliminating the need for new DNS queries.

ISP Cache – In the same way that your web browser has a cache of recent web pages, your Internet Service Provider (Telstra or Optus, for example) may be doing some caching on your behalf.

How do I flush or clear my cache?

There are a few things you can try to ensure your cache is fully cleared and you are viewing the very latest version of your website.

Try a hard refresh first

First thing to do is to try a hard refresh of your web page. Depending on your operating system all you need to do is the following key combination:

Windows: CTRL + F5
Mac: Apple + R or command + R

Clear your browser cache

This video gives clear steps for flushing your browser cache:

These two steps should clear most issues.

More rarely, you may need to clear your website cache. You can do so by logging into your WordPress admin and using the ‘Clear Cache’ or ‘Purge Cache’ option in your very top admin bar.

Very rarely, you will also need to flush your DNS Cache.

If issues still persist, please allow a few hours to pass and then try re-loading your website. Or try a different web browser, device or internet connection.