A stored copy of a page that gets served to visitors instead of rebuilding it every time — which can briefly show the OLD version after you've made a change.
To stay fast, websites and the networks in front of them (your CMS, a caching plugin, a CDN like Cloudflare) keep a saved copy of each page and serve that copy to visitors. It's great for speed, but it means a change you just made — a new H1, a fixed title, a removed noindex — may not be visible to everyone right away. The edit is in your CMS; the cache is still handing out yesterday's page.
"Live" means the cache has cleared and the updated version is being served to everyone, including Google's crawler. Until then, an SEO fix can look done in your editor while the public (and search engines) still see the old page.
This is exactly why CommandSEO separates "marked done" from "verified." When you complete a task we mark it done, but a re-scan reads the page the way a visitor or crawler actually receives it. If the cache hasn't cleared, verification will show the change isn't live yet — so you know to purge the cache (or wait for it to expire) and re-verify until it's genuinely served everywhere.
What to do about it
After shipping a fix, clear the cache — purge your CDN, flush your caching plugin, or wait out the TTL — then re-verify the page in CommandSEO. When verification passes, the updated page is live for everyone, not just in your editor.
If a fix you made keeps failing verification, a stale cache is the most common cause. Purge it and re-scan before assuming the change didn't ship.
Common questions
Why does my fix look done but not show up?
A cached copy of the old page is still being served. Your edit is saved in the CMS, but the cache (plugin, server, or CDN) hands out the previous version until it's purged or expires. Clear the cache, then re-verify.
What does "live" mean in CommandSEO?
Live means the cache is cleared and the updated page is served to all visitors and crawlers — not just visible in your editor. CommandSEO's re-scan reads the page as a visitor receives it, so a passing verification confirms the change is genuinely live.