Clearing your website's cache
Use the Cache Clear page in Delivery to rapidly purge your cache and push changes to your pages so your end users can see your updates.
When you make a change to a story, that change appears immediately on the story page on your site; however, if that story is referenced on other pages on your site, it can take time for the change to appear on those pages. This is because your site is configured with a specific time-to-live (TTL). For example, your site might have a 15-minute TTL, which means that your site refreshes only every 15 minutes. If you make a change to a story, it could take up to 15 minutes for that change to be reflected on referenced pages. For more information on how cache clearing works in Arc XP, see Automated cache clear: how your page gets updated when content is published.
But in some situations, waiting 15 minutes can be too long. The Cache Clear page lets you immediately push changes to a given URL, clearing your cache and posting the most recent changes to your story. When you perform a cache clear, the TTL starts over. For example, if you perform a cache clear at minute two of a 15-minute TTL, your TTL resets to zero and starts another 15-minute countdown. For more information, see How content refreshes when using Arc XP cache defaults.
The Cache Clear page works for all pages of your site, including homepages and template-based URLs. Keep the following items in mind:
The Cache Clear page trims anything after
?or#in a relative URL.Cache Clear clears the relative URL you enter for all websites in the organization (in the same environment) using the same URL path.
Cache Clear clears the global content cache from PageBuilder Engine and the rendered page cache from Delivery.
Note
The system clears only primary content (managed by a global content source) in the PageBuilder cache. Secondary content on the same page may still use a valid PageBuilder cache. See Understanding how your page composition impacts content platform load.
The following table lists the types of URLs you find in Arc XP and states whether you can clear their cache with the Cache Clear page.
URL type | Supported by cache clear |
|---|---|
Relative URLs For example, | Yes The Cache Clear page clears all websites in your organization using this path. |
Outbound feed URLs For example, | Yes The Cache Clear page supports wildcards. |
Absolute domain URLs For example, | No |
URLs with query parameters For example, | No |
Image resizer URLs For example, | No |
Video manifest URLs For example, | No |
Alternate origin URLs For example, any URL that is not part of your domain. | No |
Prerequisites
To use the Cache Clear page, you must have the Operations permission.
Imagine your newsroom just published a major breaking news story. The article itself updates immediately, but your homepage and category pages still show outdated headlines and summaries due your site's 15-minute refresh cycle. With publish interest mounting, you need those updates to appear now. Using the Cache Clear page in Delivery, you quickly clear the cache for those key pages, ensuring readers see the latest developments immediately.
Procedure
Use these steps to clear your cache.
Navigate to the Delivery application.
Click Tools > Cache clear. The Cache clear page opens.
Click Clear a path.
Enter the path you want to cache clear in the Path field. Ensure your path does not contain
#or?characters.Click Clear path.
The system clears the cache for the path you entered, typically in less than one minute.