How to Clear WordPress Cache – Step By Step Guide
You might have made some major changes to your website on your administrator dashboard, but on viewing your site in the browser, you find out that nothing changed. You may also have made and saved changes to scripts on your web server, like modifying fields on your contact form. If you are wondering what happened to the changes you made and why they aren’t seen when you preview the site, you should ask yourself if you need to clear or purge WordPress cache.
Your WordPress website may be caching pages with the help of WordPress plugins, and so is your browser. Your updates are likely not showing because your cache plugin has not updated its content to your latest additions, or you have not cleared your browser cache.
A cache plugin is very necessary for the optimum performance of your WordPress website. It enhances website speed by caching pages and loading them to the browser on user requests.
In this article, we will explain to you what caching plugins are and why you need to install one. We will also teach you how to clear WordPress cache from some of the popular WordPress caching plugins.
There are some managed websites that save cached data on the server. For website owners who fall under this category, we will show you how to purge cache from your WordPress web host.
Content:
What is caching, and how do cache plugins work?
Caching helps to reduce the time and resources needed to load your site pages. In WordPress, the caching plugin creates and stores a static version of your website’s most requested files.
With the cached content available, WordPress does not repeatedly need to go through the process of loading numerous PHP scripts, pulling database results from the DB, loading JavaScript, CSS and HTML files to the browser on every request.
To make things faster, WordPress fetches the cached version of your web content from the caching plugin and loads them to the browser. This greatly reduces the load time of the website, and the number of server resources it could have used.
Why do you need to clear your WordPress cache?
Since WordPress would rather load content to the browser from caching plugins, there are chances that changes you made directly to your scripts or via the admin dashboard may not reflect immediately when you load the site.
So you have to manually get rid of the static, cached version of your web pages, media, compressed scripts, and stylesheets. You must do that by purging your cache plugin to make room for updates from the server.
It is very important to clear the browser cache frequently. This is necessary for all updates to load on the browser. Most popular browsers always save cached data and the saved data can prevent updates from loading properly. So it is up to you to manually clear out the browser cache by yourself as it is the only way your updated content can load.
Three steps to clearing WP Super Cache WordPress Plugin
Step 1
Login to your admin dashboard, go to Settings and select WP Super Cache from the menu.
Step 2
On Wp Super Cache Settings page, click on the Delete Cache button.
Step 3
You will see a window with a table of Cache Content. All cached pages created by the plugin may be listed out. Again, click on Delete Cache.
How to clear WordPress cache from W3 Total Cache Plugin
Step 1
Login to your admin dashboard. Click on Performance to access the WP Total Cache dashboard, or Mouse-over Performance and select Dashboard from the menu.
Step 2
Search for a button labeled ‘empty all cache’ in the outlined region on the page as shown in the image below and click on it. And that’s it.
Two ways to purge WP Fastest Cache WordPress Plugin data
Step 1
Login to your admin dashboard, and click on WP Fastest Cache
Step 2
On the WP Fastest Cache Options page, select the Delete Cache tab.
Step 3
Finally, click on the Delete Cache button
Note: A quicker way to clear all WordPress cache from the WP Fastest cache is to mouse-over Clear Cache on the admin menu bar and select Delete Cache.
Clear WordPress cache from your managed WordPress host
If your website is hosted on a managed web hosting company, it means that such hosting companies have made provisions for the user to easily purge WordPress cache. You can always contact your host if you feel you need their assistance to purge your WordPress website cache. Such web hosting companies include WPEngine, Bluehost, Kinsta, and SiteGround. You can also check our recommended best hosting providers for WordPress.
Conclusion:
Caching plugins play a vital role in speeding up the loading time of your website. However, because of the way these plugins work, it is important to know, that they can prevent you from seeing the changes you have made to your website after refreshing your browser.
This tutorial has shown you how to clear the WordPress cache from the popular caching plugins. The problem you faced where your saved changes did not update is now solved. You may also learn how to Fix “WordPress Keeps Logging Me Out” Error and how to Fix Err_Connection_Refused Error.
Remember to always clear your browser cache, as many times as you clear the cache in WordPress. Your browser cache can as well prevent you from seeing changes made in your site. For more WordPress tutorials check our WordPress blog.
