Help:Purge

Purge is a function that is sometimes necessary to use to update a wiki page whenever template- or subpage-transclusions are involved. Purging clears the page's server cache, and the page is rebuilt. Before purging, you may want to try first to refresh the page using your web browser, or clear your local browser cache.

For updating a page display, any purge methods do the job, but for categories and backlinks that aren't showing linked articles known to exist, a null edit is required, and other methods don't work.

The page to purge is the one that transcludes, not the page that gets transcluded. Purge consumes a small amount of additional processing power to rebuild the page.

How to purge

The user links, when using the Monobook skin

With the default Monobook skin, this is easy, simply click the "Server time", as displayed in the user links area. You will then be asked if you with to purge the cache of the page. Click "OK", and the purge will complete.

When using other skins, you will instead have to edit the URL of the page. This is most easily done by first clicking the "edit source" or "view source" tab at the top of the page, and then changing last portion of the URL's query string from action=edit to action=purge (anything in the URL that appears after action=edit can be deleted). You should be left with a URL that looks something like https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/page name?action=purge. Press enter on your keyboard, and then click "OK" on the page that appears.

Clear your local browser cache

Sometimes, issues are caused by your browser's local cache. To clear it, use these key commands:

See also

• mw:Manual:Purge