Some users suffer the problem of changes they have made to their web site not appearing. This is often accompanied by changes that have appeared, disappearing the next time that particular page or item is edited. This problem is caused by caching (pr: cash-ing).

Most domestic and non-corporate Internet connections can be slow, so to give the effect of browsing faster, your web browser has something called a cache built into it. When you visit a particular web site, a copy of it is placed in a reserved area on your computers hard disk. When you revisit the page within a certain time period, the browser makes an decision to load that page from your hard disk instead of fetching it back from the Internet without telling you. Because your hard disk is much faster than your Internet Connection, it gives the impression that the web page has loaded up faster.

In most cases, caching is fine, but in the case of ik.com powered web sites where updates are fast and frequent, the cache can often point back to the hard disk when it shouldn't. Effectively, you see the old version of the page, without your saved changes loaded from the hard disk, instead of the newly updated version from the ik.com web servers.

The vast majority of caching issues occur in Internet Explorer and can be solved by following these simple steps... :

On a Windows PC:

• Go to the Tools Menu
• Choose Internet Options
• Click Settings (this is on the General tab in the 'Temporary Internet Files' or 'Browsing History' section)
• Make sure that Check for newer versions of stored pages is set to Every visit to the page
• Click OK repeatedly until you get back to your regular browser screen.
• Close all browser windows and restart your browser

On a Macintosh:

• Go to the Edit Menu
• Choose Preferences
• Choose Advanced in the Web Browser section
• In the Cache section, select Always
• Click OK
• Restart your browser

Other browsers cache settings can be accessed in a similar way through their preferences, tools or options menu. You will then be able to access the cache settings through a privacy, or other submenu.

Sometimes, the above steps do not alleviate the problem. In this case, the problem is most likely caused by the type of Internet connection you have, or even by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

If you connect to the Internet over a corporate or school network, often the device used to share the Internet connection across the network (called a proxy server) will have it's own cache built-in. You must have the cache disabled for all .ik.com and .ik.org domains.

Some ISP's cache your Internet connection too heavily, which can cause problems. The majority of problems are to be found with ADSL or Cable Broadband connections. A broadband connection that is ten times faster than a modem connection, should in theory, cost almost ten times as much. The reason that your home broadband only costs £25-£35 per month is because lots of cost-cutting measures have been introduced by your ISP. One of these is the introduction of powerful cache systems.

ISP's are charged by their Internet providers for the Internet traffic that is sent to you by the Megabyte. If you request a page twice, the second time, they can send it from their cache, which costs them nothing. Unfortunately, this often means you get an out-of-date web page, or in the case of an ik.com powered web site, you don't see your changes. The only way to get round ISP caching is to press [Ctrl] [F5] on your keyboard which will force a refresh of the web site. This may have to be repeated in order for the site to reload.

Some ISPs provide online support for caching, where you can type the address of a web site that shouldn't be cached and they will make sure it's reloaded every time. Contact your ISP support for more details.