Have you ever visited a web page as a user and abandoned it because you have lost patience waiting for it to load? A short loading time has a positive effect on the user experience of your website and is an essential criterion for its positioning in Google. To optimize loading time, most web page managers use caching ..
However, it is not enough to install a cache plugin. Every once in a while, you should clear your WordPress cache to ensure that visitors always see the current version of the page . In addition, this way you minimize the risk of technical problems . In this article we explain in detail how to clear the WordPress cache.
Ideally, webmasters are not only concerned with the content of the pages, but they are also in charge of a good user experience (UX). If your users can navigate the web page easily, they stay longer on it and interact more, which, on the other hand, is positive for positioning in Google . However, for a good user experience, not only is a striking and intelligible design essential, but a short loading time is also necessary ..
When a user visits your web page , a great variety of processes necessary for the correct display of the page are automatically started in the background . Some of them are loading and executing JavaScript, reading the CSS file or querying the database. All these processes happen in the background and require loading time, during which the user must wait, until the web page is displayed correctly. If it takes too long, it has a negative effect on both the user experience and the ranking of the page in Google. However, there is a solution that shortens this load time : caching.
Caching is an important option, but not the only one, to speed up WordPress. Other practical options are to take care of the code, the different plugins or the database. Also the size of images and videos greatly affects the loading speed..
As usual, WordPress offers a wide variety of cache plugins . However, the basic function is the same in all of them: the plugin saves static copies of each page and shows them to visitors in a matter of seconds.
Although a cache plugin shortens the loading time of your web page, buffering a version of the page also has drawbacks . After an update, the cache usually shows an old version of the web page ; changes in the backend or in the CSS file are not immediately visible to the visitor. For this reason, it is important to clear the WordPress cache after having made all the changes and updates:
Generally, you only need to clear the cache in WordPress if the updates affect the display of the website . However, it is usually easier to clear the cache after each update than to check if the system requires it after a specific update.
If you plan to make significant updates or changes to the website, it is recommended to create a WordPress backup so that, in case of problems, it is possible to recover the original version.
With professional WordPress hosting , you improve the response time of your website by up to 50% and, in this way, also the user experience and your positioning in Google.
The easiest way to clear your WordPress cache is directly through the installed buffer plugin. We present you three popular cache plugins and explain how to clear the WordPress cache step by step.
The procedure is very similar for all cache plugins and can generally be adopted for other plugins.
W3 Total Cache is a free cache plugin. Its more than a million active installations make clear its great popularity. To clear the WordPress cache, you can choose between two simple possibilities :
Select the option of? Yield? in the admin panel, and then click the option? Empty all caches ?. The cache will be cleared immediately.
Alternatively, you can also clear the cache from the cache plugin settings. To do this, select the "Performance" option from the left menu , and the W3 Total Cache control panel will open. Then click the button? Empty all caches ? to clear cache with just one click.
Most cache plugins also allow you to disable the buffer until further notice . Thus, if you make a lot of changes in a short time on the web page, you avoid frequent and repeated cleaning of the WordPress cache. To disable the cache, simply select in the left area the option of? Performance? and open the plugin control panel. Then select the area ? General settings? . There you can activate or deactivate the plugin with a single click.
The WP Super Cache plugin records more than two million active installs and shortens the loading time on many web pages. The plugin displays static HTML files to most users . Only visitors or registered users who leave a comment are allowed another view.
In this plugin, we find the option? Clear cache? directly in the admin panel . One click is enough for the cache to clear.
Another way to clean the cache in this plugin is from the settings area. In the left area, select the option? Settings? and then the? WP Super Cache? plugin. Scroll down to the section? Clear page cache? . With a single click on the "Clear Cache" button, you can clear the buffer. In the section? Cache ?, you can deactivate the plugin also with a single click.
The WP Fastest Cache plugin has over 1 million active users and offers a handy feature: after creating a new post or page, the plugin clears the cache automatically . By means of a short code , the buffer can be deactivated, for all visitors to the web page or only for certain devices and user groups.
To clear the WordPress cache manually in a simple way, this plugin offers a menu option in the admin panel . Open the drop-down menu? Clear cache? and select the option? Clear all caches ?.
If the WP Fastest Cache plugin has been installed, a menu option appears in the left sidebar. Select it to open the cache plugin settings . Then select the "Clear cache" tab. Click the button ? Clear all caches? to delete all saved cache files.
If after clearing the WordPress cache there are display errors, select the option? Clear the cache and minimize CSS / JS? to delete the remaining temporarily saved data.
You can also clear or disable WordPress cache without plugin . However, the following possibilities require FTP or SSH access .
To disable cache without plugin, you need to access WordPress files via FTP access , for example with FileZilla. Open the wp-config.php file, which is usually found in your main WordPress folder. Add the following line of code to the file to disable the cache:
define('ENABLE_CACHE', false);
If the code is already available , adapt it if necessary to correspond to this specification.
To clear the WordPress cache (and not disable it), access your WordPress files via FTP and open the folder? Wp-content? and the file? cache ?. Then delete everything in this folder .
Deletes only the contents of the folder , not the folder itself.
If your hoster authorizes access through SSH (Secure Shell), there is also the possibility of clearing the WordPress cache. To do this, simply add the following command :
$ wp cache flush