How to refresh web pages

We are going to tell you how to renew a web page, from obtaining the files, editing them and uploading them so that the website is updated.

In this article we are going to tell you how to update a web page. It’s a pretty trivial topic for someone with a bit of experience in web development already but, having received several requests to address this topic from readers of the manual, it seems worth addressing.

In a previous chapter we saw in general lines, so now we are going to deal with how to do it.

Get the files to update

The first step would be to have the files of the web page that we want to update on our work computer. Generally we will have to edit a text or a photograph, so this first step will be to obtain the files with the page code, with an .html extension, or the photographs, which will be files in GIF (.gif) or JPG (.jpg) format. .

It may happen that the page has been programmed by us or by another person. In the first case, we may already have these files on our computer, otherwise, or if it was another person who had developed the site to be updated, we will have to connect via FTP to the web server to obtain the files.

To connect by FTP to the server of the page we will need the address of said server, something like ftp.yourdomain.com. We will also need the username and password with permission to access the FTP. We must obtain this data, if we do not already have it, by asking the provider of the space or the person who has hired it. To connect to the server we must configure an FTP program with these data. Some possibilities of FTP programs are , ACE FTP or FTP Voyager.

Once inside the FTP we must download the files to our local computer and for this our FTP program will present two areas, one with the files from our local computer and another with those from the remote server. By dragging the files from the remote server to the local server area we will be able to transfer the files. The most suitable thing is that we download the files in a directory on our computer created on purpose to contain the pages to be updated.

Edit the pages

Once we have the files that we want to edit on our computer, we can start the actual update work. To work it will be important to have some knowledge in web page editing or graphic design.

If we want to update a text on the page, we will have to edit the HTML files and for this, we will only need to use a simple text editing program such as . In any case, there are numerous HTML editing programs that would greatly simplify our work, with the possibility of editing the code and text of the pages directly or with the help of the design.

Reference: We talk more about HTML editors and the different types in the article.

If we want to update a graphic, we must have a graphic editing tool, among which we can highlight Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

The process, whether to edit a graphic or a text, will be the same. Basically we will open the file where the information to be edited is located, we will update it and save the changes.

Upload the files again to the server

In order for the updates to be valid and visible to all visitors to our pages, the files that we have edited must be placed on the server.

For that, it is enough to connect again to the server via FTP and upload the files, carrying out a process similar to that carried out when downloading the files, but in the opposite direction, that is, this time dragging the files from our local computer to the remote server.

It will be enough to upload the files that we have updated. The ones we haven’t touched are, in theory, the same as those on the server, so it won’t matter if we put them back, because we wouldn’t be altering anything.

Check for updates

The work is already done, so all that remains is to access our web page with our browser at its web address and verify that the changes have been made satisfactorily.

Note: If we do not see the changes made to the page, it is possibly because we are receiving the data from our browser’s cache. To skip this cache and request the files directly from the server we can use the Control (CTRL) key. With the key pressed, we click on the link of the page that we want to be obtained from the server without going through the cache. We can also update the page, bypassing the cache, by holding down the CTRL key and pressing the button on the toolbar of our browser or with the corresponding fast key (F5 in Internet Explorer). In the last case, if the content of the page is still not updated, we can close all the browser windows and reopen it and access that page, in these cases many times the browser requests all the new files that have been updated, instead to show them from the cache.