You’ve just modified the theme or created a new entry, reloaded your website – but no changes are visible. In most cases, there’s an easy solution for this problem: your web browser needs to completely reload the page from the server. A web browser saves copies of websites in its cache or in the storage of their computer. Then, on subsequent visits to the site, the web browser just accesses the saved copy in the cache so that the website loads faster.
If your web browser is loading a saved copy of the page from the cache, then your most recent changes won’t be displayed since it’s dealing with an old copy. To completely reload your site in Firefox, for example, you have to use the key combination Ctrl+Shift and press the R key. In Chrome, press Ctrl+F5. Depending on your browser settings, these shortcuts can vary.
It can happen that a web hosting service uses caching plugins in the backend without its customers knowing. It’s usually possible to disable this cache plugin in the configuration settings of your web host. To be sure, you should ask the support staff of your web host whether the service uses caching plugins or not. If this is the case, you can request that these plugins are deactivated.
Changes not being displayed is a common occurrence when using a WordPress hosting plan. Many hosting plans use server-side caching. If you’re using the provider’s WordPress service, it may be useful to manually delete the cache. In many cases, your changes will be shown immediately after clearing the cache.
If you use a caching HTTP reverse proxy on your webserver, changes to your files won’t be immediately shown. Edits first become visible after a certain time, when the cached version of the page has expired and is reloaded. To resolve this issue, set your caching system accordingly.
WordPress doesn’t have cache storage available by default. But some WordPress plugins add cache functionality to your WordPress site, regardless of your browser settings. This helps your website to load faster, since WordPress obtains your files from the cache. All good cache plugins clear the cache as soon as an edit, page, or comment is published. But if you make other changes, such as to your theme, the cache may not be deleted and will still display the old version. In this case, check the tutorial of the respective plugin to find out how to clear the cache.
When you make changes in a file, the new file is initially only saved on your computer. If you don’t see any changes, make sure you have uploaded the file and placed it in the correct folder. If you’ve overwritten an identical file, then it could be the case that the storage process hasn’t been completed. To make sure, you should delete the oldest version of the file from the host server.
You can also use a proxy website and reload your site from there. Because this is a proxy page, no cache is used, so instead the latest version of the site is loaded.