What is “Purge from cache” in WordPress?

Have you ever seen the “Purge from cache” in WordPress post or page editing? You can log on your WordPress dashboard, then go to Posts >> All Posts or Pages >> All Posts, you may realize there is a “Purge from cache” option when you are editing a WordPress post or page. See below figure.

What does “Purge from cache” mean?

Note that this purge cache option does not come with fresh WordPress installs. If you get a WordPress purge cache option like this, most likely you’re using a caching plugin. In an earlier guide, we recommended some good WP plugins to speed up WordPress sites. From this WordPress cache plugins list, you can find W3 Total Cache. If you have installed it, you can see the above “Purge from cache” in your WordPress dashboard. So what does purge from cache in W3 Total Cache do?

WordPress system is database driven. Every WordPress site has at least one database, normally MySQL database. When someone browse an article on your WordPress site, the WordPress system will pull up content from its database to create a page or post and send to your site visitor’s computer. When the second visitor browse the same article on your WordPress site, the WordPress system will do the same thing. If you have enabled WordPress cache however, cached pages will be stored on your server as html and PHP files. If someone visit a WordPress page or post which has already be cached, WordPress will send the cached page or post instantly without requesting original content from its database. This can decrease the response time of WordPress site and increase the scale of your web server so your site loads faster. You can refer to following article to find more details about What is WordPress cache?

To purge WordPress post or page from cache in W3 Total Cache simply means delete the cached WordPress post or page, so the next time when someone visit this page, your WordPress site can’t find it in cache, it will access its database to fetch the original content. After that your WordPress cache plugin will save a copy of the WordPress post or page in cache again. The cached WordPress post or page will be displayed since then until you empty WordPress cache or delete it again from cache.

How to delete WordPress Cache?

Sometimes when you updated a WordPress post or page from dashboard, and find your content is not updating at site front, you can try to clear WordPress cache to ensure you can load the latest WordPress content other than a cached page or post before modification. To instantly clear all WordPress cache using W3 Total Cache plugin, you can go to Performance >> Dashboard, then click Empty all caches to delete all cached WordPress posts or pages at once.

If you are using other WordPress cache plugin, such as the most famous WP Super Cache, you can follow below steps to delete WordPress cache. Log on WP dashboard, go to Settings >> WP Super Cache, find a Delete Cached Pages section, hit the Delete Cache button to remove all cached pages that are stored on your web server as HTML and PHP files.

Is it safe to delete cache on my WordPress site?

Yes, it’s generally safe to delete the cache on your WordPress site. In fact, clearing the cache can often be beneficial, especially when you’ve made changes to your website’s content, design, or functionality. Clearing the cache ensures that visitors see the most up-to-date version of your site and that any recent changes take effect immediately.