Force page refresh

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  philiprawlings · Member · Jan 18, 2026 at 11:02 am

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  When I make changes to my website, users/visitors need to refresh (Ctrl+F5) to see the latest version – they will not know they have to do that. There must be a way to make a page force a refresh itself. Any ideas how to do that? A general Google search seems not terribly helpful.

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  james3265166 · Member · Jan 18, 2026 at 4:50 pm

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  Hi there! You are absolutely right—you can’t expect visitors to know they need to hard refresh (Ctrl+F5) to see your changes. The issue here is actually browser caching, where the visitor’s device holds onto old versions of your CSS or images to make the site load faster. Instead of trying to force the page to auto-reload (which can be jarring for users), the standard fix is ‘cache busting.’ If you are using a caching plugin (like WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, or SG Optimizer) or a CDN like Cloudflare, you usually just need to click ‘Purge All Caches’ in your dashboard immediately after making edits. For a more permanent solution, check if your plugin has a ‘Versioning’ setting enabled; this appends a unique code to your files every time you save, forcing the browser to download the fresh version automatically. I’d recommend checking your caching plugin settings first—let me know if you need help finding the right option!