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is meta refresh tag good for weekly updated sites

J64sqs

2:09 pm on Oct 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

not sure where to post this...so feel free to move it to more appropiate forum.

I have a section of my site that I update once a week. I'd like to make sure visitors see the most updated version and not a cached version, but I don't need to have the page refreshing too often. Would something like...
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="86400">
be good? This would allow visitors to see the most updated version instead of a cached version of the page if it's been more than 24 hours (86400 seconds) since their last visit, right?

benwalsh

4:07 pm on Oct 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

When you use the <HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"> metatag in the header section at the beginning of an HTML Web page, the Web page may still be cached in the Temporary Internet Files folder.
CAUSE
A page that Internet Explorer is browsing is not cached until half of the 64 KB buffer is filled. Usually, metatags are inserted in the header section of an HTML document, which appears at the beginning of the document. When the HTML code is parsed, it is read from top to bottom. When the <HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"> metatag is read, Internet Explorer looks for the existence of the page in cache at that exact moment. If it is there, it is removed.
RESOLUTION
To properly prevent the Web page from appearing in the cache, place another header section at the end of the HTML document. For example:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="5">
<TITLE> Pragma No-cache </TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

This is an example of where to place the second header section<br>
so that the "Pragama, No-Cache" metatag will work as it is supposed to.<br>

</BODY>

<HEAD>

</HEAD>

</HTML>

MORE INFORMATION
Note that the <HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"> metatag does not work with Internet Explorer 5.

encyclo

4:12 pm on Oct 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="86400">
... This would allow visitors to see the most updated version instead of a cached version of the page if it's been more than 24 hours (86400 seconds) since their last visit, right?

No, that refreshes the page 24 hours after they load it. Unless they look at it without leaving the page for the whole 24 hours, it'll never go into action.

You can try using meta tags to control caching, but setting the expiry headers server-side is the only reliable method.

J64sqs

9:00 pm on Oct 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

You can try using meta tags to control caching, but setting the expiry headers server-side is the only reliable method.

how do you do that?