Cached websites what does that mean

A browser or Web cache does exactly that, except with program and website assets. When you visit a website, your browser takes pieces of the page and stores them on your computer's hard drive.

Some of the assets your browser will store are:. In short, browsers typically cache what are known as "static assets" - parts of a website that do not change from visit to visit. What to cache and for how long is determined by the website. Some assets are removed from your machine in a few days while others may remain in your cache for up to a year. When many people hear that websites are storing assets on their machines without their knowledge or permission, they get a bit nervous.

After all, we're placing a great deal of trust in Web developers, hoping that they won't put anything destructive or malicious on our devices. The benefits of browser caching far outweigh the risks. Good firewalls, virus scanners and common sense are all you need to keep your machine safe.

When you visit a website for the first time, your browser has a conversation with the remote server that hosts the site.

Your browser sends a request, and the server sends back one of the website's assets. The page HTML is the first to download and it becomes the blueprint by which the site is constructed. As your browser reads the HTML code, it sends out more requests to the server to send more pieces of the page, mostly the static assets mentioned above. This process takes up bandwidth. Some Web pages will take a great deal of time to fully download and become functional because they have a lot of pieces or their assets are large.

For instance, you may notice that when you first open a Web page, the text appears before the images. That's because text is small and takes little time to download, whereas a high-quality image may take several seconds an eternity in computing time to populate. Caching improves and speeds up browsing. Google will remove the snippet and cached page from search results, although the title and URL of the page will still be visible. Why would you want to access a cached page?

Although it may seem counterproductive to view an outdated webpage, there are certain situations where viewing cached pages can be beneficial to both website visitors and developers: If the website is no longer available Even if a website is no longer available, Google will have a copy stored in its archives. Related Posts. Each browser is different, but here are some links to the most popular browsers cache clearing instructions:. If any of these links don't provide the information you need to clear your cache, there are many other resources online that can help.

You can see an un-cached view of your website, using our snapshot tool. Another good tip is to visit the website on a device after turning OFF the wifi. This should get you a real-time view page and confirm a local caching issue on the original machine. More info: Definitions. Learn about our easy-to-use referral program that provides nothing but value. Get your new. Chat: Busy.