At one point, you may have published an article or made a CSS update only to load your homepage and not find it there. Chances are the problem is cache.
If you have a large website, with huge traffic, caching can be a handy tool to optimize page load time.
In this article, we will show you how to clear the WordPress cache.
Cache makes a website load faster which offers tons of benefits when loading scripts and images. It is defined as a location in a browser where web pages are stored in memory for easier retrieval at a later time.
Ideally, browsers and web servers rely on HTML instructions to create pages from items stored in various locations in a website. If cache doesn’t exist, it means that you have to build these pages every time the server asks for one. To simplify the process, cache stores these pages in a separate memory to enable the user to use it again.
A website built on WordPress has three types of cache:
- Browser: it is located on your machine or device and stores all your website information that can be used over and over again. It acts as a memory storage when you need a certain webpage.
- Cache Plugin: The plugin is made to submit already created web pages to speed up the time it takes to create a new page.
- Server Cache: With the help of a cache plugins, the host can provide storage from premade web pages to make it easy for a visitor to load them thus reducing the load time.
In this tutorial, we will look at the most common areas to start with when clearing cache on WordPress.
Step 1: Clearing Cache on Your Browser
First, you need to clear your web browser’s cache. It is common for web browsers to store static pages like images, JavaScript, stylesheets, and other pages to make your website faster.
But in some cases, web browsers may fail to recognize that some pages have changed. Instead, they can continue to reload the web page in the cached version stored on your device.
Here is how to clean your browser cache.
Go to your main menu, select More Tools >Clear Browsing Data.
You should see a popup page where you can choose the information you want to remove. Ensure that all the cached images and files box is checked then go ahead and hit the “Clear browsing data” button.
Now you have successfully cleared cache on your browser. If there are no changes on your browser, you can proceed to the next step.
Step 2: Clearing Cache on WordPress Caching Plugin
If you have a problem with your browsers, you should try to clear data on cache plugins. For WordPress websites, you need to clear plugin cache. You can do this from the setting page of the plugin.
Here are a few popular caching plugins you need to focus on.
W3 Total Cache
If you’re using this plugin, you can use the following steps to clear the cache.
Go to the Admin Dashboard on your WordPress.
Click Performance >Dashboard section
Hit the “empty all caches” button.
Once cache is deleted, you should get a message like this:
WP Super Cache
For WP Super Cache Plugin, follow the following process.
Go to Settings > WP Super Cache
Then click on the Contents section.
By now, you should see your cached data including all the cached files. Click “Delete Expired” button if you want to clear expired files or hit the “Delete Cache” button to delete all the cached files:
WPEngine
It is a hosting provider on WordPress that run’s its own caching solutions. If you notice there are no changes even after clearing cache, then you can use WPEngine cache to clear cache from your WordPress admin page.
Click on the WPEngine menu then go to “General Settings and click on “Purge All Caches” button.
WPEngine will delete all cache from your WordPress website.
Sucuri
If you’re using a firewall like Sucuri, you can clear cache by going to Sucuri >WAF menu then go to the Clear Cache tab just at the bottom of the page.
Step 3: Clearing Cache on your Server
It is also likely to find that your host may be using cache plugins on your server without your knowledge. This can occur when you use managed hosting since most of them use server-side caching that includes PHP, HTML, MySQL, and Object.
You can clear the cache on your server through host’s option settings. These settings can be found in your cPanel or admin panel for your WordPress hosting plan. It cannot be done through WordPress.
If you don’t find the setting, you can ask the admin to clear it for you. They may ask you to perform several other cache options first.
Conclusion
Clearing cache on your WordPress website is a good way to solve common problems such as login issues, slow loading time, and failure of updates to display. With the methods discussed above, you can easily clear cache from your plugins, browser, or server and increase your website load time. Try them out!
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