Stopping visitors browser from loading website from cache

Question

I updated the images and stylesheets on my website, but I am getting phone calls from clients saying my layout looks weird. When they refresh the page, it looks normal.

How do I stop their browsers from loading my website from cache?

Are there any caching mechanism used directly by your site? I'm thinking of CMS caching, in particular. — Seth Battin, Oct 26 '12 at 02:53
This [SO question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/118884/what-is-an-elegant-way-to-force-browsers-to-reload-cached-css-js-files) is a good read. — ace, Oct 26 '12 at 02:54
In addition to Mohamed's answer, you can also put this html in the head section: `` — paddotk, Feb 12 '13 at 14:19

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 26 '12 at 02:53

1

use one of the static file versioning techniques

such as adding a querystring to the static file /img/image1.jpg?v=1.0 or rename the file /img/image1_1.0.jpg

this applies to any image, JavaScript, or CSS files

answered Oct 26 '12 at 02:53

MikeM

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 26 '12 at 03:04

1

You can use meta tags to tell the browser not to cache the page:

You can also generate raw headers. Please read HTTP specifications

<?
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT");
header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT");
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false);
header("Pragma: no-cache");
?>

answered Oct 26 '12 at 03:04

Mohamed Anis Dahmani

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You might want to add that this is php code ;) – paddotk Feb 12 '13 at 14:19
when you see this ==> ?> – Mohamed Anis Dahmani Mar 10 '13 at 02:49
What do you mean? Isn't it php then? – paddotk Mar 11 '13 at 09:58
Of course it is PHP. Whenever you see those. – Mohamed Anis Dahmani Mar 11 '13 at 20:51
Actually you normally see `` instead, but my point was that you might want to say it is php, given the fact that someone unfamiliar with it may not know. – paddotk Mar 13 '13 at 09:32
yes, you are correct for this one. – Mohamed Anis Dahmani Mar 13 '13 at 10:43

Stopping visitors browser from loading website from cache

2 Answers2