Tell browser "do not use cached version"?

V

Vince

On the site that I am working on, the site owner (who uses a Mac) is unable
to see changes I have made unless she clicks the Refresh button. This is true
even if I made the changes days or weeks ago. She is concerned that other
people that return to the site will have the same issue.
Is there something I can put in the code to force the browser not to use the
cached copy?
I've read that putting these 4 tags

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">

in the Head section will do what I want, but she still only sees her cached
version of the page, unless she hits Refresh. I guess those tags may work to
prevent a page from being cached, but it seems like once it has been cached,
they do not help.

Any ideas what I might try?
Thanks
 
T

Thomas A. Rowe

That is about all you can do, as the ISP may be also caching the copy. AOL does this.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
If you feel your current issue is a results of installing
a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
http://support.microsoft.com
If the problem can be shown to have been caused by a
security update, then there is usually no charge for the call.
==============================================
 
V

Vince

In this case I do not think it ISP caching that is the problem, because when
she hits refresh she gets the new page.
 
T

Thomas A. Rowe

Then it is most likely her browser settings.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
If you feel your current issue is a results of installing
a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
http://support.microsoft.com
If the problem can be shown to have been caused by a
security update, then there is usually no charge for the call.
==============================================
 
V

Vince

Yes, I do believe that it changing her browser settings could cure the
problem for her. But I am interested in solving the problem not for her, but
for all site visitors who return to the site and are not seeing the latest
version of the page, but instead see the version that is cached on their hard
drive. Apparently it is common for some browsers to be set that way, because
I have read many posts on other forums by people having the same issue.

So I am wondering if there is a way to include code in the page that will
tell a visitor's browser not to use the cached version that is on their hard
drive, but to download the page from the server on each and every visit. (It
is a pricing page that is updated on a regular basis).

Thanks
 
R

Ronx

If that were possible, it would not work for old pages - the browser
would use the old cached version, and not the new one that has the
code in it. The codes already being used are supposed to do this:
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">
but these are fallible, and do nothing for proxy server caches.

If you change all links to pages to include a querystring, this will
normally force the browser to fetch a new version of the page being
linked to, bypassing all caches:
example: http://www.example.com/index.htm? (the ? character is
deliberate, and starts the querystring - usually nothing needs to be
added after it.) This will not affect pages loaded from bookmarks or
favourites.
 

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