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Bypass your website cache by adding a random string

Your web server may cache your script output, rendering online cronjob ineffective. You should add a random string to your cronjob URL using the keyword __random__.

For example, you set up a cronjob with the URL to call

https://example.com/cron.php?__random__

or

https://example.com/cron.php?name=value&__random__

Every time your cronjob runs, the __random__ keyword will be replaced with a random string:

https://example.com/cron.php?oHJXpSbyDMZDEnBJ

or

https://example.com/cron.php?name=value&oHJXpSbyDMZDEnBJ

Supported keywords

FastCron supports 4 keywords:

  • __random__ will be replaced with a random string
  • __timestamp__ will be replaced with the current Unix timestamp
  • __timestamp_ms__ will be replaced with the current Unix timestamp in milliseconds
  • __cronjob__ will be replaced with the cronjob ID

You can also add those keywords to your POST data (only available with HTTP method POST or PUT).

Auto add random strings to URLs

You can let us automatically add the __random__ keyword to your cronjob URLs on the Account settings page.

Account settings