Your browser's "Cache" are the temporary files that it loads to create a complete web page.  These files include images, javascript files, and stylesheets, among other things.  The reason your browser caches, or saves, files is to decrease the amount of time it takes to load a page.  If you return to a page that you have previously visited, your browser can load it more quickly if it gives you the files it has saved in its cache, rather than retrieving them again from that site's hosting server.

The Smeal College web sites are complex, and include lots of images, video files, and scripts that make it load slowly.  In order to speed up the load-time of our pages, we heavily cache our web sites.  The tradeoffs of this are that it takes a long time for changes you make to the site to take effect, (up to 24 hours) and there is a greater possibility that you may see old information on pages that you have visited before.

One thing you can do to try to see the most recent version of a page is clear your browser's cache. However, please keep in mind that we are also caching the Smeal sites on the server-side, so even though clearing your browser's cache will often help, you may still need to wait for your changes to appear.

How to Clear Your Cache in Firefox

1. Click on History > Clear Recent History... and choose a Time range to clear.
2. Under Details, make sure the only item that has a check mark is "Cache."
3. Click Clear Now.  It may take a while, but when it is finished the window will close.
4. Click OK.

How to Clear Your Cache in Internet Explorer

1. Click on Tools > Internet Options... then under "Browsing History" click Delete...
2. Choose Temporary Internet Files and click Delete.
3. Click Close > Ok

How to Clear Your Cache in Google Chrome

1. Click the Chrome menu.
2. Click Clear Browsing Data.
3. Make sure the only item that has a check mark is "Empty the cache."
4. Click Clear browsing data. It may take a while, but when it is finished the window will close.