Cache

What is Caching?

Caching is a method to improve performance for visitors to your site by storing copies of pages and files in faster storage.

Caching is important for any content management system (like Drupal and WordPress) that generates its pages dynamically, because generating the output for a page, especially complex ones, can take a long time. Once a page is generated by the content management system, a copy of the page is saved in the site cache so it can be delivered to the next visitor without regenerating it.

How Long Are Items Cached?

If you are logged in, you can expect to see all content updates immediately. For logged out users (normal visitors), there's a small delay before they may see content updates:

  • Documents and images: Up to 5 minutes
  • Pages: Up to 1 minute
Seeing delays?

If you notice that changes you are making to content are consistently not being reflected to logged-out visitors quickly, there may be an issue that WDS needs to resolve, and you should open a support request. Please provide as much detail as possible.

How Our Caching Works

There are several layers of caching involved on your Drupal site:

Clearing Caches

Uusers with the site admin role have the ability to manually clear their websites caches. Under normal circumstances, this is never necessary. Your website is designed to automatically clear appropriate cache entries as needed. However, WDS recognizes that there may be times when this is not working as expected.

If content you've updated does not appear for all visitors on you site within 5 minutes, you can try clearing the caches. If this resolves the problem, we encourage you to contact WDS and let us know the circumstances. It's possible there's an issue with the platform that we can fix!

The buttons to clear cache are found under Configuration > Development > Clear Caches.

If you believe your site is experiencing a high volume of traffic, it's best to wait for a period of relative inactivity before clearing caches, as your site will become slower for a few minutes afterwards.