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Cachebuster – A Pro Tip for Bypassing Cache

Caching is a great way to improve website performance and minimize the load.

An ideal cache displays the cached version until the content changes and flushes the cache when there is a change. Yet, there may be cases where the cached version is not the most up-to-date one (if there is a DB error on the site or the caching is only time-based..).

And, we may want Uptime Robot to load the non-cached version on each request to make sure that the uptime/downtime is decided accordingly.

Here is a tiny feature (a pro tip) that can help bypassing cache.

Cachebuster

Uptime Robot will auto-replace the string:

  • *cachebuster*

in the querystring with a unique timestamp every time so that each requestΒ is unique.

As an example, if the website to be monitored is:

  • https://mywebsitetomonitor.com

We can use the URL as:

  • https://mywebsitetomonitor.com/?*cachebuster*

and the request will have a different querystring each time.

Hope this helps for a better uptime.

Update (2019-11-19): The feature can now be used for custom HTTP headers and POST values as well.


Written by Tomas Koprusak

Product Owner | LinkedIn

Tomas Koprusak is a Product Owner at UptimeRobot. He has a rich history in similar roles at global IT powerhouses like IBM, where he started as a developer and moved to a Product Manager position, working with EMEA clients and colleagues from the US, Brazil, and China.

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17 replies on “Cachebuster – A Pro Tip for Bypassing Cache”

Sounds great. I am new to the service so, very basic question – it is called a Pro tip, is the feature available in the Free version? We are testing the features/ service in Free version now and would be good to know if Free supports the *cachebuster* feature or not.
Thank you.

Hi David! It should work for you too πŸ™‚ please let us know if there is anything we can help you with.

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