force page to reload on back button

How to Force a Page to Reload on Back Button

Have you ever had the experience of clicking the back button in your browser and finding that the page isn't reloading? This can be frustrating, especially if you've made changes to the page and want to see them reflected after going back. Fortunately, there are a few ways to force a page to reload when the back button is clicked.

Making Use of the Cache-Control Header

One way to force a page to reload on back button is by setting the Cache-Control header to no-cache. This will tell the browser not to cache the page, so when the user clicks the back button, the page will be reloaded from the server.

<?php
    header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate"); 
    header("Expires: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); 
?>

Using JavaScript

Another way to force a page to reload on back button is by using JavaScript. You can add an event listener to the window object that listens for the popstate event, which is triggered when the user clicks the back or forward button.

<script>
    window.addEventListener('popstate', function () {
        location.reload();
    });
</script>

Meta Refresh Tag

The third way to force a page to reload on back button is by using the meta refresh tag. This approach involves adding a meta tag to the head section of your HTML document.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL='http://example.com/'">

These are three ways you can force a page to reload on back button. Choose the method that works best for your project and implement it accordingly.