Google bids farewell to cached sites

Google has recently decided to discontinue 'cached sites', the practice of storing a backup of the entire internet. This feature, previously available in Google Search, provided an alternative means to access websites that were inaccessible or altered. 

Danny Sullivan, Google's 'Search Liaison', confirmed the removal of this feature in a recent announcement on X, stating that it was initially introduced to assist users in accessing pages during times when page loading reliability was less dependable. However, with significant improvements in internet infrastructure, the necessity for this feature has diminished, leading to its retirement.

Previously, cached links could be found under the drop-down menu adjacent to each search result on Google's page. As Google's web crawler traversed the internet, it stored copies of webpages it encountered, effectively creating almost a backup of internet contents. In light of Google's current emphasis on cost efficiency, discontinuing cached links could result in significant resource savings by allowing the deletion of cache data.

While cached links were valuable for accessing websites experiencing downtime or rapid changes, they also provided insights into how Google's web crawler, known as the 'Google Bot', perceives the web. Cached pages did not necessarily mirror the standard webpage view, as they often displayed text-only versions. Over time, Google Bot evolved to recognise media contents and other data like Javascript, although many details about its operations remain confidential to avoid exploitation by search engine optimisation (SEO) spammers.

With the demise of cached sites, the burden of archiving and monitoring changes on the web will fall more heavily on organisations like the Internet Archive.