You’ve updated your site, but the change stubbornly refuses to appear. Almost always, that’s a cache serving the old version somewhere between your server and your screen. The trick is knowing there are several caches, and clearing the right ones. Here’s the full list.
1. Your caching plugin
Start here. Any caching plugin has a prominent Clear Cache or Purge All button, usually in the admin toolbar or the plugin’s settings. Click it. This clears the stored static copies of your pages so WordPress rebuilds them fresh. This alone solves most cases.
2. Your browser cache
Your own browser stores copies of images, CSS and scripts to load pages faster. After a change, it may be showing you the cached files rather than the new ones. Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5 on Windows, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac) or open the page in a private/incognito window to bypass the browser cache entirely.
3. Object cache (Redis)
If your site uses Redis object caching, that stores database query results in memory. Your caching or Redis plugin will have a button to flush it. On a busy site this can be the reason a data change isn’t reflected.
4. CDN cache
If you run your site through a CDN, it caches your files across its network, and that copy lives outside your hosting. Log into the CDN’s dashboard and purge its cache too, or your visitors keep getting the old files even after you clear everything on the server.
5. Server-level cache
Some hosting stacks add their own caching layer at the server. On our servers, we can flush server-level caches for you if a change genuinely won’t appear after you’ve cleared everything else.
The right order
Work from the server outward: plugin cache, then object cache, then CDN, then finally your browser. Clearing your browser last means you’re testing against the freshly rebuilt version rather than an old local copy.
Still stuck?
If you’ve cleared every cache and the old version persists, double-check you’re editing the right site (staging vs live is a classic mix-up) and that the change actually saved. If it truly won’t budge, we can check for a server-side cache holding on — just ask.
