It seems to happen almost every day ...
A member of staff makes requested changes to a client's website. And yet the client can't see the changes when they go to the web. Why?
Amazingly, a lot of people don't understand that their computer has a cache and why. Let's say you are browsing your favorite website. Simply put, every page has elements in common, such as the graphics for the navigation and so on. Your surfing would be a lot slower if your computer had to load these images every time you went to a new page.
Therefore, your computer helpfully stores the pages you visit in its memory, its 'cache'. This means that the next time you go to that site, the computer generates the page from it's cache, rather than going through the process of downloading everything from the internet all over again.
Very helpful - except if that page has changed since you last looked, your computer will be showing you the old version, the version it has in its memory or 'cache'.
So if changes have been made, you are not going to see them unless you refresh your browser.
Which is easy, because every browser has a refresh button, doesn't it? Well yes, but pressing the refresh button isn't necessarily going to work; your computer's cache can be a pretty stubborn beast. If you press the control key at the same time, that might do the trick.
Might.
Some browsers just refuse to refresh. (Notably older Internet Explorer, but it can happen with any browser for reasons which I don't pretend to understand). Remember that the cache is in your computer and not your browser. So closing your browser and opening another isn't guaranteed to work. It all depends on your computer, its workload, its settings and - seemingly - whether or not there is an R in the month and which way the wind is blowing.
If you really want to, you can clear your cache by going to tools and internet options and following the instructions there - but it's much easier just to believe your web company, I cannot think of any circumstances under which they would say that they'd done he work when they hadn't!
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Postscript: I saved this rant, went to check it out on the internet and guess what .....?
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