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submitted 9 months ago by d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world

One of Google Search's oldest and best-known features, cache links, are being retired. Best known by the "Cached" button, those are a snapshot of a web page the last time Google indexed it. However, according to Google, they're no longer required.

"It was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading,” Google's Danny Sullivan wrote. “These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it."

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[-] nicetriangle@kbin.social 303 points 9 months ago

They really have just given up on being a good search engine at this point huh?

[-] lauha@lemmy.one 153 points 9 months ago

They are an Ad company, and using cached page doesn't bring ad money to their clients

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[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 18 points 9 months ago

They may not have a choice in the matter. AI-generated pages are set to completely destroy the noise to signal ratio on the web.

Google's business has two aspects, collecting user data and serving ads. If Search stops being relevant people will stop using it, which impacts both aspects negatively.

[-] NoRodent@lemmy.world 188 points 9 months ago

Well that really sucks because it was often the only way to actually find the content on the page that the Google results "promised". For numerous reasons - sometimes the content simply changes, gets deleted or is made inaccessible because of geo-fencing or the site is straight up broken and so on.

Yes, there's archive.org but believe it or not, not everything is there.

[-] OpenStars@startrek.website 44 points 9 months ago

Or locked behind 100 pages of unnecessarily paginated content. Seriously, one of the best features that a webpage has over a physical printed page is the ability to search it for what you were looking for... smh:-(.

[-] ARk@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago

We must archive all the things

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[-] Toes@ani.social 146 points 9 months ago

That's bs, it's one of the best features Google has and they've been ruining it. Wayback machine wished it could be that comprehensive.

[-] Aatube@kbin.social 59 points 9 months ago

Wayback is definitely more comprehensive than Google. I’ve only seen three occasions of links Google has saved that Wayback hasn’t.

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[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 117 points 9 months ago

of course it is. why have anything good on there, no point reminding me of the old days when the internet was actually fucking useful

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[-] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 112 points 9 months ago

Without getting into too much detail, a cached site saved my ass in a court case. Fuck you Google.

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[-] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 88 points 9 months ago

At this rate Search will end up in the Google graveyard

[-] TurtleJoe@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

It'll be nothing but AI spam.

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[-] gunslingerfry@lemmy.world 82 points 9 months ago

Google is the king of giving bullshit reasons to hide their true intent.

[-] grayman@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago

My guess is ads don't work in cached pages.

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[-] FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 74 points 9 months ago

We that's some shit. I often use that to get info off of pages that I won't be clicking on normally.

[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 70 points 9 months ago

there are half a dozen still very good reasons to keep this feature and one not to: lost ad revenue

assholes

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[-] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 57 points 9 months ago

The enshittification will continue until quarterly reports improve.

Just kidding, it will continue regardless.

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[-] tux0r@feddit.de 57 points 9 months ago

These days, things have greatly improved.

Websites will never change their URLs today.

[-] ares35@kbin.social 21 points 9 months ago

i maintain redirects for old URLs for which the content still exists at another address. i've been doing that since i started working on web sites 20-some years ago. not many take the time to do that, but i do. so there's at least a few web sites out there that if you have a 20 year old bookmark to, chances are it still works.

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[-] NoRodent@lemmy.world 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

By they way, I just found out that they removed the button, but typing cache:www.example.com into Google still redirects you to the cached version (if it exists). But who knows for how long. And there's the question whether they'll continue to cache new pages.

[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 34 points 9 months ago

they've broken / ignored every modifier besides site: in the last few years, god knows how long that'll work

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 49 points 9 months ago

It was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading,” Google's Danny Sullivan wrote. “These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it."

They still go down, Danny. And fairly frequently at that. Y'all are fuckin' stupid.

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[-] Goodie@lemmy.world 49 points 9 months ago

Time to donate to the internet archibe.

[-] EnderMB@lemmy.world 47 points 9 months ago

How has no one worked on a new search engine over the last decade or so where Google has been on a clear decline in its flagship product!

I know of the likes of DDG, and Bing has worked hard to catch up, but I'm genuinely surprised that a startup hasn't risen to find a novel way of attacking reliable web search. Some will say it's a "solved problem", but I'd argue that it was, but no longer.

A web search engine that crawls and searches historic versions of a web page could be an incredibly useful resource. If someone can also find a novel way to rank and crawl web applications or to find ways to "open" the closed web, it could pair with web search to be a genuine Google killer.

[-] mlg@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago
  • Google invents, invests, or previously invested into some ground breaking technology
  • They buy out competition and throw tons of effort into making superior product
  • Eventually Google becomes defacto standard
  • Like a few years pass
  • Google hands off project to fresh interns to reduce the crap out of the cloud usage to decrease cost
  • Any viable alternatives are immediately bought out by Google
  • Anything left over is either struggling FOSS or another crappy corporate attempt (cough cough Microsoft)
  • Repeat

My favorite case in point being Google Maps.

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[-] i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 42 points 9 months ago

I find this very useful to read paywalled articles that Google has managed to index!

OK, I see why they might want to get rid of it.

[-] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 40 points 9 months ago

Ironically just yesterday I needed Google Cache because a page I needed to read was down and I couldn't find the option anymore.

Are we going to need to go back to personal web crawlers to back-up information we need? I hate today's internet.

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 17 points 9 months ago

https://github.com/dessant/web-archives

It's a browser extension that links to a dozen online caching services.

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[-] pastaPersona@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

In a shocking turn of events, google decided once again to make their namesake service worse for everyone.

Legitimately baffling, keeping this feature doesn’t really seem like it would impact anyone except those that use it, while removing it not only impacts those people that already use it, but those who would potentially have reason to in the future.

Cannot think of a single benefit to removing a feature like this.

[-] OpenStars@startrek.website 19 points 9 months ago

It is only baffling if you still think that Google's aim is to help people. At one point they were trying to gain market share and so that was true. It is not anymore.

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[-] ZambiblasianOgre@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

Absolute cunts

[-] Swarfega@lemm.ee 30 points 9 months ago

I stopped using Google late last year and it's pretty eye opening how much freer I feel now. Previously, any searches I made would follow me around. Make a one time search for something I'd see that being advertised later on. As a result I started searching more using private browsing. I'd often forget though and end up being tracked.

Ultimately switching to Firefox and DuckDuckGo I no longer have to do private searches. No more being followed around the internet.

Also I'm not convinced private browsing works. For example I still use it for YouTube but I noticed despite YouTube not knowing who I am, the videos on the home page include some that are very related to my usual videos. I guess they are using IP's to still deliver relatable videos.

[-] Zink@programming.dev 21 points 9 months ago

Private browsing keeps your computer from remembering things about what you did. It cannot keep other people’s computers from remembering everything about interacting with you.

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[-] Monomate@lemm.ee 29 points 9 months ago

Ironically, the link to this as article is offline for me. "Cached" surely would solve my problem.

[-] Astronautical@sh.itjust.works 28 points 9 months ago

Finally, an excuse to use the Wayback Machine for all of my searches!

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

didn't that happen like years ago? or maybe because I am using Firefox, but I haven't seen the button for the cached website for a while now

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[-] Kid_Thunder@kbin.social 25 points 9 months ago

It has barely existed for years anyway. Anyone can remove the Google caching from their website and most major websites and many small ones do.

Now I just have an archive.org extension to do the se thing basically.

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[-] ad_on_is@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

Has Elon secretly bought Google too?

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[-] puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 9 months ago

Fuck. I sometimes use the text-only version to access sites with too many moving elements or when the site is geoblocked or doesn't respect cookies choices and denies access. So far, it has been the most reliable one for me.

[-] kratoz29@lemm.ee 22 points 9 months ago

That is BS, a site can be down at any time, did we fix downtimes for good? Those down detector sites might just shut down as well then ಠ_ಠ

[-] zcd@lemmy.ca 20 points 9 months ago

Google well on their way on their uber-dick speedrun

[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

This is the search engine equivalent of aiming a carbine at your feet and shooting yourself with a .50 cal round.

Cached pages were something I found myself using quite a bit and them going may be the push needed for me to use an alternative search engine.

[-] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

Enshitification strikes again. Cached doesn't make money and maybe reduces adclicks so it's gone. This benefits Google but not users in any way whatsoever.

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this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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