Don’t know how to Clear Cache in WordPress website?
Website cache is very helpful to loading a website faster. A slow-loading website can turn away visitors, impacting engagement, conversions, and search engine rankings. To make your site faster, the cache plays an important role.
Cache helps to load our site faster but sometimes we need to clear the website cache to ensure our website’s latest content perfectly sees audience. In this tutorial, I will discuss the cache, how it works, and how to clear the cache on your WordPress website.
So without further ado let’s jump in.
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What is website cache and how it works?
Website cache is a temporary storage of static files, data, and content from a website in order to expedite its loading speed and enhance user experience. When a user visits a website, their browser sends a request for various files from the web server, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and other assets required to display the page.
If all the files load from the main server, It takes some time and slows the website to load. Enabling cache is very helpful there. When someone visits a website, caching stores a copy of these files in a designated location, either on the user’s device (browser cache) or on the server itself (server cache), allowing for quicker retrieval.
Caching reduces the website loading time because the server doesn’t need to recreate the entire webpage for each new request. Instead, the cached version is delivered, resulting in faster page loading times, improved performance, and reduced strain on the server.
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Why need to clear cache in WordPress?
Clearing cache in WordPress is essential for several reasons. If you clear the WordPress cache, it ensures your website functionally works correctly, displays the most up-to-date content, and provides visitors with an optimal browsing experience. Here are some more reasons why you might need to clear cache in WordPress:
Reflecting Recent Changes: When you update your website such as adding new content, changing the design, or modifying settings, visitors will not see the changes if you do not clear the cache.
Resolving Display Issues: Cached versions of your site might conflict with new changes. Clearing the cache helps to resolve visual or functional problems.
Plugin and Theme Updates: When you update plugins or themes, the changes may not show up if the cached version is being served. If you clear cache in the WordPress website, It improves visitor’s experience with the latest features and improvements.
Improving User Experience: A fast-loading website contributes to a positive user experience. To ensure that visitors enjoy optimal loading speeds, reduced wait times, and seamless navigation, clearing the cache is very important.
Testing and Development: If you’re a developer or designer working on a website, clearing the cache is important for accurate testing and development results.
Also Read: How to optimize image for WordPress website?
How to Clear Cache in WordPress?
There are various methods available to clear your WordPress website cache. Below I discussed some cache-clearing methods with step-by-step guidelines:
1. Clear Browser Cache
Browser cache is stored on visitors’ devices, and it can prevent them from seeing your website’s latest changes. So users need to clear the cache. Now let’s see how you can clear your browser cache as a visitor.
Go to Google Chrome browser and you will see a “Three dots” icon at the top right. Click on the icon and go to More Tools → Clear browsing data. You can also use the shortcut “Ctrl + Shift + Delete“.
Now Select “Cached images and files” and any other data you want to clear and then click on the “Clear data” button.
So you will see all the cache has been cleared and you will see all the latest changes of the website.
2. Clear Cache using WordPress Caching Plugin
If you’re using caching plugins like WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache, clearing their caches can be done from your WordPress dashboard. Below I show you the process of some plugins.
WP Super Cache
To clean the cache using the “WP Super Cache” plugin, go to Settings → WP Super Cache and scroll down. You will see a “Delete Cache” button. Now click the “Delete Cache” and “Delete Expired” buttons. You will also see a “Delete cache” shortcut button at the top bar.
W3 Total Cache
If you are using the W3 Total Cache plugin, you can clean the cache easily. Go to Performance → Page Cache, and click on the “Empty All Caches” button.
You can also easily clear the cache from the top bar.
3. Clearing Server Cache
If you use WordPress-managed hosting for popular providers, they offer a built-in caching option. So you can easily clear the server cache. Now see how to clear the server cache from popular WordPress hosts.
WP Engine
WP Engine offers the cache clearing option and you can access it from your WordPress dashboard. To clear the cache go to your WordPress Dashboard → WP Engine → Caching and click the “Clear All Caches” button.
Bluehost
If you use hosting from Bluehost, you can easily clear the server cache. Go to your WordPress dashboard → Bluehost → Settings.
Now scroll down and you will see the “Performance” section. Click on the toggle button and make sure it is On. Now select Assets & Web Pages and click on the “clear everything” button.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy also provides its own caching clear functionality. You can easily use this option. Go to your WordPress Dashboard → GoDaddy → Tools and you will see the Flush Cache option. So, click on the “Flush Cache” button to clear the cache.
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Conclusion
Cache helps to load your site faster and also helps to increase user experience. But sometimes we can not see the latest changes because we see the cached pages from our browser or server. That’s why we need to clean the cache from our server and browser.
Using the method I showed above, you can easily clear the cache if you can’t see the most recent changes to your site. There are lots of plugins also available to clear the cache and you can use it. I always recommend clear cache in WordPress website when you make any changes on your site.
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