Bypassing Link Cache

Link cache is where the browser uses its cached copy when it sees a link it previously downloaded.

It can be frustrating.

When you update CSS or Javascript code in an external file, you want the browser to download the latest copy. Then cache all it wants, but at least get the latest version.

Here's a secret: To get the browser to download the latest copy, appended a "?" plus any keyboard characters to the URL of the external file.

The browser sees it as a new URL. It downloads the latest copy. Everybody is happy.

To illustrate, here is a before and after link URL:

https://example.com/main.css
https://example.com/main.css?hello

Whenever you make another change to the file, also change the keyboard characters following the "?". The browser sees it as a different URL.

I tend to append the date of the latest change after the "?" character. Sometimes month and day, sometimes also the year. In the future, it then also tells me at a glance what date the file was changed.

(This blog post first appeared in Possibilities newsletter.)

Will Bontrager