How to Clear Your Cache in WordPress
February 14. 2022
If you are looking to increase user experience and boost SEO on your website, the first thing you need to make sure of is that your website is working at its full speed. If your website has optimized speed, you can expect lower bounce rates and higher engagement and conversations. This will also ensure that Google ranks your website higher on the search result page. One of the most important components that ensure your website is working quickly is caching. It’s basically storing copies of your site data to ensure quicker page loading in future requests. However, as cached files can expire, it’s very important to regularly clear your cache in WordPress.
If you are not sure how to clear your cache, continue reading. On the other hand, if you make sure to get in touch with the experienced WP Full Press team, clearing cache is the last thing you’ll have to think about. In fact, you’ll be able to focus your attention on other aspects of your business and be sure that your website is being taken care of.
What is WordPress cache and how does it work?
As we already mentioned, the cache is a temporary storage location for static content. It helps websites run faster and thus increases user experience. Each time you visit a website, your browser sends requests to the specific site’s server. As it can take a couple of minutes for the server to fetch and show the content, caching was created to make things faster.
What web caching does is download the website’s static content and stores it as cache files. As your browser will already have cached content, it won’t have to create too many requests to the website’s server.
When it comes to web caching, it’s important to know that there are two main systems:
- Client-side caching (or clearing your browser cache) stores the static content in local storage. Whenever a user revisits a specific website, the content will load faster. This happens because there is a cached version already stored in the browser’s cache folder.
- Server-side caching has pretty much the same concept as browser caching. The difference is that this type of caching uses a server to store the cached data of a certain website. This is a great solution for high-traffic websites given that server cache can store site data from multiple databases.
Why should you clear your cache in WordPress?
You might think that clearing your cache doesn’t make sense given that it increases your site performance and helps sites with limited resources use less bandwidth. However, you have to keep in mind that whenever you change and tweak your WordPress website, the content might not update on the front-end. This happens if your WordPress server continues displaying the cached version of your pages.
The solution is simple – clear your cache in WordPress. After doing this, the caching system will automatically store the updated version of your website. This way, you’ll make sure your visitors always see the latest version of your website pages. Out of many reasons to clear your cache in WordPress, this might be the most important one.
Clear your cache in WordPress using a plugin
Regularly clearing your cache will help you ensure your site has all characteristics of a user-friendly website. The simplest way to do this is by installing one of caching plugins. We’ve selected the three most popular caching plugins and you can find out more about them further in this article.
LiteSpeed Cache
If you want to efficiently manage how the cache is stored and used on your WordPress website, downloading the LiteSpeed Cache plugin might be the best choice for you. This plugin uses the LiteSpeed server cache and thus improves your website loading time. In fact, all of the hosting plans are LiteSpeed-powered. In case you are want to use a different web host, simply download and activate this plugin to your WordPress.
This plugin offers multiple ways to clear your cache in WordPress. For instance, you can set an automatic cache purge based on specific factors. You can even include specific website URLs for a scheduled purge. This plugin can also be used to clear the cache of a specific page by visiting it. It’s as simple as hovering over the LiteSpeed icon on your admin bar and choosing “Purge this page”. It wouldn’t be used by over 3 million websites if it wasn’t that good.
WP Super Cache
Another great plugin for caching is WP Super Cache. It modifies the caching system in your WordPress site. It does that by using three different caching modes – Simple, Expert, and WP caching.
If you have a high-traffic website, the expert and simple modes might be a great solution for you as they serve super cached files. The only difference between them is that the expert mode includes writing rules in your .htaccess file. It does that to ensure faster performance. When it comes to WP caching mode, it caches logged-in users. For instance, visitors that leave comments or store personal data on your WordPress website.
One of the best features this plugin offers is flushing cache files with a single click. It’s pretty straightforward to use so it’s suitable even for WordPress beginners.
W3 Total Cache
With over 1 million users, W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular WordPress caching plugins. It’s famous for its customization and bandwidth-saving features. Namely, this plugin can help you save up to 80% bandwidth usage. It also offers various caching abilities including database, browser, and site cache.
W3 Total Cache plugin also comes with AMP support. This helps you boost SEO performance on your WordPress website. On top of that, it allows users to use its WP-CLI support to command interface to perform different tasks. For example, to purge cache or query string updating.
Final thoughts
As you can see, clearing cache in your WordPress website is important for many reasons. Improving user experience will lead to increased traffic on your website and thus help you potentially expand your business. After all, this is your end goal.
Even though it’s not difficult to clear your cache in WordPress by yourself, there are probably segments of your business that require more of your attention than your website. Why not then let the experienced WP Full Care team handle all aspects of managing your WordPress website? You can rest assured knowing that your website is in great hands!