Everything you need to know about caching

When someone visits a website, all kinds of different processes are performed so that a user gains access to use the website. Carrying out these processes can sometimes cost an unnecessary amount of time and capacity. Time and capacity could be better spent on other things. To avoid this situation, caching is used. With the help of caching, the loading time of a website is considerably reduced! What exactly is caching? And how exactly does it work? Read more about this in this article.

What is caching?

In short, caching stores data from a website for reuse. In that case, a copy of this web page is in fact made. The caching process retrieves data from the cache. Cache is a software or hardware component, which aims to store new data. This is done so that future requests of the same data can be retrieved. This will reduce the loading time of a page much shorter, so that data from that website can be retrieved and processed faster. Such a cache memory is also seen as a high-speed data storage layer.

Website caching is one of the most profitable technologies available for universal use today. This technology makes websites accessible faster. This will result in better SEO scores for the website administrator and a better user experience for the website user.

In short, the performance of the website is optimized in an effective way. So there is no reason why you should not want to apply website caching to your own website!

Using Caching

The caching process can best be described as one that looks at the way a page is displayed. The moment someone visits a website for the first time, the website opens in the normal way. Then the caching process begins. This process goes like this:

• The request for access to the website is received;
• This request is being processed;
• The webpage that is displayed is converted to a WordPress file, for example;
• This WordPress file is then stored on the RAM.

When the same visitor comes to the website for the second time, the prepared WordPress file is sent to the user’s browser. As a result, the loading speed of the website for the user will be much higher than last time. The image on the left shows how you can apply the caching process yourself on your own PC.

Emptying the cache

Despite the fact that the page is displayed faster, it can sometimes happen that old data is shown on a subsequent visit to that website. This happens because the browser had still saved locally. It is then useful to no longer retrieve the latest data locally, but from the server itself. To do this, the cache must first be emptied, so that the latest information can be retrieved again. Emptying the cache is different for each browser. See below the different options:

Delete cache in Google Chrome

1. Click on the 3 dots in the top right corner of the menu bar
2. Click on ‘More tools‘
3. Click on ‘Clear browsing data‘. Select only the checkmark next to ‘Cached images and files‘
4. Click on the ‘Clear data‘ button
5. Close or reload the tab

Delete cache in Mozilla Firefox

1. In the Mozilla Firefox menu under Tools (Tools) choose the item Options (Windows)
2. Click on Cookies and Site Data (Windows)
3. Click on the button ‘clear data‘ (Windows)
4. Select only the check mark ‘Cached web content‘ (Windows)
   Close or reload the tab (Windows)

1. Select ‘History‘ and below that the submenu item ‘Clear recent history‘ (Mac)
2. The drop-down menu allows you to specify the time range of the cache (Mac)
3. Select the data to be removed from the cache (Mac)
4. Click on ‘Now Clear‘ (Mac)
5. Reload the page (Mac)

Delete cache in Safari

1. Click on Safari in the menu bar at the top
2. Click on ‘Preferences‘
3. Click on the ‘Advanced‘ tab
4. Check the box Show Develop menu in menu bar
5. Click in the window on the red dot with a cross
6. Click on ‘Develop‘ in the menu bar at the top
7. Click on ‘Empty caches‘
8. Reload the page

Delete cache in Microsoft edge

1. Click on the three dots at the top of the screen
2. Click on ‘Settings‘
3. Select ‘Clear browsing data‘
4. Click on ‘Choose what you want to clear‘
5. Check the data and files in the cache you want to delete
6. Click on ‘Clear‘
7. Exit or reload the page

How Convident uses caching?

Convident uses the WordPress program on all websites they maintain. WordPress is a system to manage a website, webshop or even a blog, without the need for knowledge of programming languages. The technology of caching will greatly improve the speed of a WordPress site, without having to sacrifice anything. When a customer purchases a VPS website hosting package from Convident, WordPress is automatically included with an optimized caching process.

Do you also want a WordPress website with an optimized caching process? Please contact the Convident employees and they will help you further.