I have a website built with WordPress. I update the pages quite often and every time I make an update, I’d flush cache on the server and check the updated pages on different browsers to make sure they display the updated pages.
Problem I have is I got feedback from some customers saying they still see the old page.
I solve the problem by telling them to refresh their browser.
But how do they know to refresh the browser each time I make an update to a page? Does that mean a lot of my clients did not see my updated pages and therefore missed important announcements?
I don’t refresh my browser each time I go to Yahoo! and still I get the most updated page.
You can set limits on how long browsers should serve cached contents. For example, if you update your page content every day or two, you might want to set a cache limit of 24 hours for .html files, but a longer limit for things you change less often, like .css or .js files.
It can be done through the .htaccess file. I don’t use WordPress, but this article gives full information on using .htaccess with WP:
Note: You should only use the <IfModule mod_expires.c>...</IfModule> tags while testing. Once you have established that the module exists, delete those tags. Otherwise, you are constantly using system resources to make unnecessary checks.
Thanks for the reply. I just heard from a friend that he downloaded and installed a different browser (one he has never installed or used before) and it still loads the cached version of the page. That’s very weird to me. Maybe somewhere on the server?
