Nginx no-cache header for ?random query string

Question

On an Nginx install using WordPress with the Jetpack plugin, it has the ability to use domainname.com/?random to redirect to a random blog post.

The problem is that this page is getting cached and after visiting the random link once. It will not randomly redirect anymore - you simply get the same page as the first time random was clicked.

To remedy this, I tried:

location = /\?random {
      expires -1;
}

and other variations like:

if ($arg_random){
      expires -1;
}

Those don't seem to obey the rules.

I'm grateful for any help. Thanks.

W3 Total Cache is handling caching. Is there a rule that I can add there to not cache the /?random link? — Kevin Worthington, Feb 09 '14 at 11:37

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 09 '14 at 17:08

Inspired by Michael Hampton's comment, I dug deeper.

It made me realize that W3 Total Cache is probably to blame for caching ?random links on a per-user basis.

In the W3TC plugin's settings I added "?random" (no quotes) to the "Cache exception list" on the Page Cache setting page (/wp-admin/admin.php?page=w3tc_pgcache)

Thanks for the great question which led to mer discovering the answer, Michael.

Nginx no-cache header for ?random query string

1 Answers1