“Clear your browser cache” is our first response when a web page is not loading correctly. Why?
What is browser cache
Browser cache is a storage space for standardized web content. It means less data needs to be downloaded so the website content can be displayed more quickly.
Websites are constructed with templates and a significant number of standard elements. e.g. our website header and menu bar is the same on every page on our site. Clever coders thought, why download the same elements again and again for every page – lets download once and then keep it so we can use it again? …and that’s what the browser cache is for.
When you first visit a page, the browser downloads any elements that are standardized then for each additional page you visit, the standard elements do not need to be downloaded again. The standard page elements are dated or are refreshed every so often so you are looking at fresh data.
However there is a little more to it than that. For example, coders can identify elements that change and get those to refresh more often etc etc. What this means is that when there are significant changes you may be loading old elements and YOUR browser cache needs to be updated.
In some situations you need to see a COMPLETELY NEW COPY and just hitting the refresh button (or F5) is not sufficient. In such instances you need to refresh your cache. Below are a set of instructions of how to do this for each device and main browser types (and versions).
PC (windows) browser
MAC browser (Safari)
IOS browser
Android browser
