Question

For my site I have the following htaccess rules:

# BEGIN Gzip
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript
</IfModule>
# END Gzip

# BEGIN EXPIRES
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 days"
    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/plain "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
</IfModule>
# END EXPIRES

I’ve just updated my site and it looked all screwy until I cleared my cache. How can I force the client’s browser to clear the cache after an update so that the user can see the changes?

Answer 1

You can force browsers to cache something, but

You can’t force browsers to clear their cache.

Thus the only (AMAIK) way is to use a new URL for your resources. Something like versioning.