You’ve just posted new content and now it’s not showing up. So what do you do now?
Before you contact your developer, there are a few things you should try.
Clear Your Built in Caching Plugin
Let’s just start here. If your Content Management System has built in caching, either through your hosting or a website, and you can’t see your content, chances are your seeing a cached version of your site from before you made the change. Caching systems we typically see are Hummingbird and the built in caching for Flywheel and WP-Engine. But there are dozens of them for WordPress and even more associated with other content management systems. If you aren’t sure, ask your friendly neighborhood developer or contact us, and we’ll help you figure it out.
Chances are this step will fix your problem, but if it doesn’t, go ahead and do a couple more things before reaching out to a developer. Because, frankly, they’re going to ask you if you’ve done these before they look at your problem, anyway. Or they’re going to charge you for doing these exact same things. So, onward!
Clear Your Browser Cache
Sometimes even if you’ve cleared your site cache, the old site can still be stuck in your browser cache. This used to be my least favorite step, and I would do almost anything to avoid this because it cleared EVERYTHING. Any saved passwords, saved logged in states… all of it would be obliterated. But things have changed and now most browsers give you a choice of what you want to clear.
If you’re using Chrome, you should just need to go to chrome://settings/clearBrowserData. Once you’re there (you should be in a popup), you’ll choose “cached images and files”, then click “Clear Data”. Don’t check the boxes next to the other options, particularly the cookies and other site data, unless you want to lose all of your saved login states.
I’m not going to go into how to clear you cache in every browser, but I will direct you to this article where someone else has done that for me!
Most of the time steps one or two will fix your problem, and you’ll see your content. However, if you still don’t see your new image or post, there’s one more step before you contact your developer.
Incognito
Have you checked the page in “incognito” mode? This will show you the page without cookies. It sometimes eliminates something that might be stuck in a cache. And it’s easy enough to use, and it will help your developer to know you’ve already tried this.
Check the link in incognito in Chrome by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner of your browser window and clicking “new incognito window” in the dropdown. If you’ve already done the other steps without seeing your content, and you check in incognito and DO see your content, I’m not going to lie, I’m going to be really surprised.
One More Optional Step
Either way, you can now either do one last step, or go ahead and contact your developer. The last optional step is simple – try a different browser. Again, if you’ve done the other steps and didn’t see your content, and you try a different browser and you DO see your content, this would be surprising. It’s good information for your developer- not good news, but good information.
Contact Your Developer
You’ve reached that moment! You’ve tried all the above, and you still can’t see your content. Go ahead! Email your developer. When you do, make sure to include the following:
- Steps you’ve already tried
- Browser you’re using (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer*, etc.)
- Device you’re using (Samsung Galaxy phone, iPad, desktop Windows computer, etc.)
Taking these steps and including this information will allow your developer to fix your problem as quickly as possible, so you can be back up and running.
*If you’re using Internet Explorer- first of all, please don’t – but if you are, you need to include the version of IE. To determine that you’ll need to follow these steps. And if you’re on a version older than 11, you really should upgrade.