Title: Cached CSS files redirection and Google Bot errors Last modified: August 26, 2021 --- # Cached CSS files redirection and Google Bot errors * Resolved [adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) * (@adamovic) * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/) * Hey, * First of all, the plugin works great and solved many of my problems already 🙂 * But there’s still one issue that keeps popping up from time to time and doesn’t affect the real users of my website, but it effects how Google sees my website. * I’m not sure how exactly Asset Cleanup merges and stores CSS files together but it seems like it does it frequently and each time it does it the end file gets a unique random name (e.g. head-345a42ce54345ffa6e5cecd88229f26e4436bb27.css). * I’m using ahrefs to monitor some of my SEO stuff and every two weeks or so I get a bunch of errors in my weekly site audit that these CSS files don’t exist anymore and are thus redirected to my 404 page ([see screenshot](https://ibb.co/tDqPKzN)). * Normally that wouldn’t bother me because it’s only a tool and I don’t care if it sees an error that isn’t there for real users. But it appears that Google’s bot sees my website the same way as ahrefs and keeps notifying me of mobile usability errors for random pages of my website. Apparently it uses cached CSS files from Asset Clean Up that aren’t there any more, resulting in a weird-looking page ( [this is how Google Bot sees](https://ibb.co/rM3Q7jJ) one of my pages and [this is how I see it](https://ibb.co/gJNg8yP)( not logged in and incognito)). * I’m using WP Fastest Cache as my caching plugin. Any ideas how I can go about sorting this? * Thanks! Adam * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fcached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US) to see the link]_ Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total) * Plugin Author [Gabe Livan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabelivan/) * (@gabelivan) * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14807550) * [@adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) I’m glad the plugin works as expected and hopefully, you will be using it in the long term. * The problem seems to be the fact that the files get deleted after a while. If you check the value from _“Settings” -> “Plugin Usage Preferences” -> “Clear previously cached CSS/JS files older than (x) days”_, make sure you set it to a higher value such as 14. Lots of combined CSS files are generated because many pages that you have on your website are having distinctive styling from Elementor. It’s enough one extra Elementor thing to be added to one page and if it’s an extra CSS loaded, a new combined CSS will be generated and the previously generated one for that page will expire based on the value that I mentioned earlier (e. g. 14 days). * No other plugin or tool should interfere with Asset CleanUp’s files. The deletion of those files shouldn’t happen (e.g. WP Fastest Cache should mind its own files). If a page is reindexed by Google just once a month, there’s a chance it will attempt to load older files that are already deleted. So, find out the re-index frequency and increase the value of the following value even more: “_Clear previously cached CSS/JS files older than (x) days_“. * Just a reminder that the situation you described should happen only if you constantly update the pages with new Elementor things that have their own CSS and the generation of new CSS files is necessary. It’s enough if you also update a plugin that has a new CSS file and obviously the combined CSS file has to be updated with a new name. I hope it helps! * Thread Starter [adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) * (@adamovic) * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14807887) * Ah, awesome, thank you! I honestly did not know this setting existed 🙂 * This should help, yes. I changed it from 4 to 14 days, now let’s wait and see. * Plugin Author [Gabe Livan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabelivan/) * (@gabelivan) * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14808423) * [@adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) remember that the total time of a cached page should not exceed 14 days. I’m referring to WP Fastest Cache. Let’s suppose you have mostly caching pages you want the page caching to clear after a long period of time to avoid using extra resources. If it clears every 3 weeks (just an example) and you set 14 days as the total duration for“ Clear previously cached CSS/JS files older than (x) days”, then if the Asset CleanUp Pro’s CSS/JS caching is cleared BEFORE the WP Fastest Cache one, then you might end up with the same problem as the older files will be deleted and WP Fastest Cache will still reference them and Google will obviously indeed the broken pages. * Thread Starter [adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) * (@adamovic) * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14810274) * I think I know what you mean. If WP Fastest Cache is set to keep a page cached longer than Asset CleanUp, WP Fastest Cache will at some point be offering cached CSS files that don’t exist anymore. * WP Fastest Cache allows me to set a timeout rule to clear cache based on my server time. So the best option would be to set both caching intervals of WPFC and Asset CleanUp to be the same. But how can I know if those two intervals overlap? Does Asset CleanUp rely on my server time as well? * Plugin Author [Gabe Livan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabelivan/) * (@gabelivan) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14840623) * [@adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) Asset CleanUp files caching mechanism also uses the server’s time to calculate how much time has passed since it was last cleared. Also, whenever WP Fastest Cache is cleared, a non-cached page is accessed (to recreate the new HTML code), and at that moment, Asset CleanUp’s cache is cleared too. Moreover, the caching is cleared often whenever you update something via Asset CleanUp’s settings and using the CSS/ JS manager. * As long as WP Fastest Caching is cleared periodically, there shouldn’t be any functionality problem. There’s won’t be any problems with both plugins clearing their caching at the same time 😉 * Thread Starter [adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) * (@adamovic) * [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14869041) * Ok, so the bottom line is I must only make sure that the Asset CleanUp’s cache isn’t cleared more frequently then WP Fastest Cache. * I have the Asset CleanUp set to 14 days. In my htaccess the WP Fastest Cache ExpiresByType text/css and text/javascript are set to A10368000, which is 120 days. I can set a timeout on WPFC every 15 days. If I do that and change the Asset CleanUp’s setting to 15 as well, would that do it? Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total) The topic ‘Cached CSS files redirection and Google Bot errors’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/wp-asset-clean-up/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=1981952) * [Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-asset-clean-up/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-asset-clean-up/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-asset-clean-up/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-asset-clean-up/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-asset-clean-up/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-asset-clean-up/reviews/) ## Tags * [caching](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/caching/) * [css](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/css/) * 6 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [adamovic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adamovic/) * Last activity: [4 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cached-css-files-redirection-and-google-bot-errors/#post-14869041) * Status: resolved