Why Do I See the Previous Version of My Landing Page After Republishing?

If you've recently made changes to your landing pages, but still see the previous version, your browser may be caching your landing page. 

This article will explain caching, how caching plays a role in viewing the updated version of your landing pages or website, and steps to clearing a browser, page-level, or network cache. 

What is Caching?

Browser caching is a process in which the browser stores resources or elements from your landing page or website; the cache stores these resources. Caching can be the reason why you may see the previous version of your landing page, before your most recent republish or changes.

These stored resources include images (logos, pictures, backgrounds, etc.) and elements that make up the website (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more).

Caching can happen depending on whether the user is a first-time visitor or has visited your site before:

• For first-time visitors, your web browser will begin the process of collecting data from the webserver. The web browser will then store the web resources in a cache.

In contrast,

• The web page will load faster than the first visit for returning visitors using the same browser, because the web browser will retrieve the web resources like images, CSS, and JavaScript from the cache.

Caching & Your Unbounce Landing page

So you've just published your landing page and navigated the URL in your browser - everything looks great!

The next day, you decide to change your background image, for example. You swap out the old background image for the new one and load the live version of your landing page again to see how it looks - you notice the old background image is still there.

Your machine cached the previous background image, and has not requested the new image. Therefore, your browser will not obtain the updated background image until you clear the cache. 

You may need to clear your cache, page-level or browser cache, or your network cache to fix this. 

Clearing Your Page-Level Cache

Most browsers for Mac & Windows devices allow you to clear your cache by performing a hard refresh.

Clearing a page-level cache only clears the cache of that specific webpage exclusively. 

Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click on the reload icon on your browser’s toolbar.

Here are some hard-refresh keyboard shortcuts depending on your device:

Device	Browser	Keystroke
Mac	Chrome or Firefox	Shift+Command+R.
Mac	Safari	Command+Option+E to empty the cache. Then hold down Shift and click Reload in the toolbar.
Windows	Chrome, Firefox, or Edge	Ctrl+F5 (Also try Shift+F5 or Ctrl+Shift+R).
iPhone, iPad, or another mobile device	N/a	No shortcuts. Navigate to the Settings in your Apple device to erase your browser’s cache.

 

Clearing Your Browser Cache

Clearing your browser cache will completely refresh the cache of all web pages you've visited previously. The steps to clearing a browse cache vary depending on your browser (Google Chrome, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox): 

Google Chrome

1. Launch Google Chrome. 
2. At the top right, click the Morebutton.
3. Click More Tools, then Clear Browsing Data...
   • Or, paste the chrome://settings/clearBrowserData URL in Chrome's address bar and click enter.
4. At the top, choose a time range. To delete everything, select All time from the drop-down menu.
5. Check all the boxes next to Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
6. Click Clear data to clear the cache.

For more up-to-date steps, see Chrome's documentation on clearing cache & cookies. 

Safari

This forum explains how to delete your cache from Safari with the latest upgrade to Mac: 

1. In the Menu bar at the top of the Safari toolbar, click Safari and select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
2. Click the Advanced tab. Select the Show Develop menu in the menu bar checkbox and close the Preferences window.
3. Select the Develop drop-down menu from the Safari toolbar.
4. Click Empty Cache from the list.

As an added precaution, clear your browser history in Safari as well. 

Mozilla Firefox

1. In the Menu bar at the top of the Firefox toolbar, click Firefox and select Preferences.
2. Select the Privacy & Security panel.
3. In the Cookies and Site Data section, click Clear Data…
4. Remove the checkmark in front of Cookies and Site Data.
   • For more information about managing site data, see Manage local site storage settings.
5. With Cached Web Content check marked, click the Clear button.
6. Close the about:preferences page. Any changes you've made will automatically save. 

See Firefox's documentation on clearing cookies and site data for more detailed steps.

Microsoft Edge

1. Launch Microsoft Edge, select the Menu button.

2. From the Menu, navigate to Settings > Privacy & services.

3. Under Clear browsing data, choose what you'd like to clear. 

4. Select Cached images and files and Cookies and other site data checkboxes; then select Clear.

See Microsoft's documentation on deleting cookies (and clearing browser cache). 

Clearing a Network Cache

Sometimes you might find that visitors on your WiFi network see an older version of your page. In contrast, visitors on other networks (LTE, 3G, or different WiFi networks) see the updated version. Or, you may test your page in an Incognito window, and still see an out-of-date version.

This may be due to your network cache.

DNS caching is the process of saving recently-visited IP addresses to a database; this allows your browser to reload sites that you have visited much faster than if it had to reference the DNS again each time.

If your DNS cache becomes corrupted, outdated, or causes connectivity issues, clearing your DNS cache can often help resolve the issue.

Often, the DNS cache will refresh itself periodically if your DNS records have a Time to Live value (TTL).

To manually flush the cache, follow these instructions depending on your device: macOS, Windows, Chrome, or Linux.