how to clear your cache

How to clear your WordPress cache

It’s a good idea to have a caching plugin on your WordPress website and we explain why in this new article.

What is the cache of a website?

The purpose of the cache is to store data temporarily, to load web pages faster from a browser. It is a storage space dedicated to this purpose.

What data is stored in the cache? Static data such as images, HTML, Javascript, CSS.

Ultimately, the cache will optimize the loading speed of the site. This results in a better user experience (Ux) and the sending of positive signals to search engines and the natural referencing of the website. Google indeed gives importance to the loading speed of a site.

Why empty the cache of his website?

On a website, the cache is emptied so that changes made to the administration interface of the site are visible online.

The cache system stores a version of the files at a time T and gives them back to the users. If an administrator makes changes that affect these files and does not empty the cache, the old files will always be restored. The changes will therefore not be visible online. Clearing the cache allows you to store new versions of files to be restored.

Note that this operation is done by the owner of the website.

How to empty the cache of your WordPress site?

If you don’t have plugins allowing you to manage the cache for your website, this point doesn’t concern you. This second step can be done if you have a plugin in place. Several extensions allow to have a caching of the pages of the site.

Let’s take WP Rocket for example. It is a paid extension but not all of them are. When the plugin is activated, in one click, the cache is emptied.

You can often find an option like “Clear Cache” in the settings of your WordPress site in the plugin settings.

Here are other plugins that allow you to do this: WP Super Cache, Litespeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, or WP Fastest Cache.

Even if it seems obvious, you should only install one cache module on your website.

What is the browser cache?

It is different from the cache system present on the website as described above. Browsers also store information when you surf on websites. And sometimes these web browsers do not detect the changes that have been made on the site.

How to empty the cache on a browser?

This action can be performed regardless of the browser used; Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, to name only the most popular.

Unlike the website cache, which is emptied by its owner, the browser cache must be emptied by the user.

To empty the cache on Chrome, for example

  • click on “More tools
  • and then on “Delete browsing data”.

You now know what the different types of cache are and why they are important for displaying up-to-date information on websites.

Don’t hesitate to contact our team if you want to entrust the optimization of your website to a professional.

Peter
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