How to Clear Your Cache in WordPress (Step by Step)

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Have you ever made changes to your website, such as a CSS change, and you did not see this change directly on the website?

Or what about a new article that you publish and that's crazy enough does not appear right on the homepage.

Chances are that the cache will occur with this. In this article, I tell you what cache is and how to empty it so you can see all changes on your WordPress website again.

What is the cache?

Cached will save a static version of your website. It allows your website to load faster and heavy PHP scripts do not need to be rotated every page view.

There can be caching at different levels. For a WordPress website, there are three different cache types. This way you have the browser cache, cache plugins, and server cache.

The browser cached various files from websites that do not change frequently. Therefore, when a page is revisited, it is not always necessary to load everything from the server because the browser extracts this information from its own memory.

Cache plugins typically make static HTML pages of your web pages. These HTML pages can be provided quickly to your visitors because everything is done well and does not need to be retrieved from the database.

Finally, server-level cached plug-in or script can also be run. In this case, web pages are often also saved as HTML pages and other files can be cached to make everything as fast as possible.

Thus, the goal of caching is simply to optimize the speed of your website and improve the user experience. It may only happen that your cache does not see certain changes immediately. This can be frustrating if you are key to your website. In this case, it's convenient to empty the cache so you can see the changes again.

Empty browser cache

If you are the only one who does not see a change, it will be cached on your browser. Browsers regularly record image, CSS and JavaScript files, and do not always see any changes.

To ensure that everything is retrieved from the website and not from the browser cache, you will have to clear your browser's cache. You can do this in the following way:

• Chrome - Settings (three points), More tools, Clear browsing data
• Firefox - Menu (hamburger), Preferences, Advanced, Network, Buffered Web Content, Clear Now
• Safari - Develop, Empty caches
• Edge - Options (three points), Settings, Clear browsing data

Once you've done this, you've successfully emptied your browser cache. Refresh the page and see if you see the changes now. Still, do not see the changes you've made? Then it's convenient to empty your website's cache.

To cache a WordPress cache plugin

Do you use a plugin like WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache or another cache plugin? You may want to clear the cache of this plugin before you can see the change.

Most plugins contain a button that lets you empty your website's cache. Below I will describe where you can find two popular cache plugins.

Empty Cache in WP Super Cache

If you have installed WP Super Cache on your website and want to empty the cache, you can do this by pressing a button. The delete cache button can be found by going to Settings -> WP Super Cache and then the "Easy" tab.

Once on this page, you can click on the "Delete cache" button and all cached files from your website will be thrown out for you.

Empty Cache in W3 Total Cache

If you have W3 Total Cache installed on your website, you can also empty the cache with a push of a button. With W3 Total Cache you can go to Performance -> Dashboard and you will see an "Empty all caches" button immediately.

Once you click the button, all files are cached.

Empty server cache

If the above options do not work, there is a chance that a cached script is running at the server level. This makes hosting providers to minimize the server's load. It is not always known so you may not know that caching is also on the server level.

How to empty the server cache and how much you influence it depends on your hosting provider. You might look in cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk or another control panel, or there is an option to empty the cache.

Another option is to ask your hosting provider what the options are because you do not see the changes directly on your website. Of course, you should first know if server-level caching is best, so you can ask for better.

Today, more and more hosting providers use Varnish caching. A plugin like Varnish HTTP Purge can help you to empty the cache.

So far, the different ways to empty the cache and hopefully solve your problem. It's not very difficult to empty the cache, but you just need to know how and where you can do this.