Understanding Cache: Site Updates and Support FAQs

Not seeing what you expected after requesting a change or update on your website?

Once we’ve made adjustments to your site, the latest and greatest won’t always immediately visible to you as you review.  The issue is most often because of website caching, a technique that is used to speed up page delivery and which can work on three levels:

Level A: Browser Cache (always try this first!)

Your web browser – whether mobile or desktop – stores copies of frequently visited websites in its cache.  This ensures that when you return to a given page, you’ll get the contents that much quicker.  However, when we make modifications, if you’ve been visiting the site often, you’ll often see an old “cached” version.  It’s important to clear your browser cache and ‘hard refresh’ any page that you’ll be reviewing for changes. Here is a brief overview of how to clear your browser cache across various browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer or Edge, please click here.

Level B: Website Software or Server Cache

Often, Social Ink will have installed software either on your website’s front stack (for example, a WordPress plugin) or in the background on your server, that creates fast copies of frequently retrieved pages. These function even more quickly than browser caching, above, as we rely on the power of your host to speed up delivery. We’ll need to clear these caches ourselves, so please let us know if you believe this is the issue.

Level C: Domain-level Cache

Finally, often we’ll route your site through a CDN like CloudFlare in order to increase site speed even more. This works really well, and helps with SEO too! But changes there may take a while to be seen by you or the general public visiting your site.  As in “level B,” above, please reach out to us to update this should you need any support.

Need more help? Whether you are a Social Ink client or someone who wants our help in an on-off manner, get in touch!