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Google Search is losing its 'cached' web page feature

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.”

mintiefresh ,

No need. Sundar is bad enough as is.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

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.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

I kind of wonder if they’re just training machine models with it all so they don’t have to store the content. That would give us a pretty good reason why their search results became inadequate over the period of a month or two.

ad_on_is ,
@ad_on_is@lemmy.world avatar

Has Elon secretly bought Google too?

laurelraven ,

Nah, they’ve been pulling crap like this for at least a decade now, nothing new here

Psythik ,

Yup, removing useful features is kind of Google’s thing.

I still mourn the death of the Menu button in Android.

kameecoding ,

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

Psythik ,

It’s still there; just buried in a menu now.

_number8_ ,

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

Guru_Insights99 ,

Since when did you use this feature? Please cite a source

CrabLangEnjoyer ,

Like a couple of times a year at least. Faster and easier than going to the way back machine to get a copy

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Please cite a source

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3710a111-2a12-4716-8e19-d17f58205a36.jpeg

Emerald ,

I last used the feature to view deleted reddit posts.

Another time I used something similar (the wayback machine) to view long gone websites about a postcard

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

You are a source. I am a source.

nixcamic ,

I’ve used it three times today. Site down, geo-blocked, and a forum post with info I needed deleted.

Resonosity ,

So ignorant, if you’ve had to do any digital research, you know these tools intimately

nicetriangle ,

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

lauha ,

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

kratoz29 ,

Make sense, it seems that they have been having lots of meetings regarding how to maximize its revenue

Juvyn00b ,

They’ll reintroduce the feature with their own ads embedded.

lemmyvore ,

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.

Resonosity ,

Internet Archive is essential now. I used to use Google Cached for when IA failed. All researchers are now losing that resiliency.

EnderMB ,

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.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

There’s a lot of startups trying to make better search engines. Brave for example is one of them. There’s even one Lemmy user, but I forget what the name of theirs is.

But it’s borderline impossible. In the old days, Google used webscrapers and key word search. When people started uploading the whole dictionary in white text on their pages, Google added some antispam and context logic. When that got beat, they handled web credibility by the number of “inlinks” from other websites. Then SEO came out to beat link farmers, and you know the rest from there.

An indexable version of Archive.org is feasible, borderline trivial with ElasticSearch, but the problem is who wants that? Sure you want I may, but no one else cares. Also, let’s say you want to search up something specific - each page could be indexed, with slight differences, thousands of times. Which one will you pick? Maybe you’ll want to set your “search date” to a specific year? Well guess what, Google has that feature as well.

Pulptastic ,

Cached versions can sometimes get around a paywall when a site gives Google access but charges users.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

Archive.is them

TWeaK ,

Brave is not a business that should be supported. Also, I’m pretty sure they just use Bing for a back end.

There are also a few paid search engines that people say are good.

Veddit ,

What’s the issues with brave??

TWeaK ,

They’ve had a history of controversy over their life, ranging from replacing ads with their own affiliate links to bundling an opt-out crypto miner. Every time something like this happened, the CEO went on a marketing campaign across social media, effectively drowning out the controversial story with an influx of new users. The CEO meanwhile has got in trouble for his comments on same-sex marriage and covid-19.

In general, it’s always seemed like it would take a very small sack of money for Brave to sell out its users. Also, their browser is Chromium based, so it’s still contributing to Google’s market dominance and dictatorial position over web technologies.

piecat ,

The next revolutionary search engine will be an AI that understands you. Like what a librarian is… Not just ads served.

spujb ,

i don’t need a search engine that understand me i need a search engine that finds sites and pages based on a string of text i provide it

we should be calling the future piss the way it’s going down the toilet

piecat ,

Well, at the least, you need something to filter out the shit trying to game seo. To me it seems that AI is the easiest approach.

gunslingerfry ,

I recommend Kagi. Bought a family plan and it feels like I’ve gone back to 2016 when the search engines weren’t a dumpster fire.

UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT ,

Second kagi. I’m just on the personal plan, but can confirm it’s fire

mlg ,
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar
  • 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.

sgtgig ,

Bing’s copilot is genuinely pretty good, the AI answer is often pretty accurate and the way it’s able to weave links into its answer is handy. I find it way more useful than Google search these days and I’m pretty much just using it on principle as Google is just pissing me off with killing their services, a few of which I’ve used.

I don’t think Microsoft is some saint but copilot is just a good product.

AAA ,

Yes, that would be a Google killer. If you somehow find the money to provide it for free.

Finding a novel way of searching is one thing. Finding a novel way of financing the whole endeavor (and not going the exact route Google is) is another.

gunslingerfry ,

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

nossaquesapao ,

Just like that safetynet thing. They will write long pages about it, but won’t admit they want to make custom android roms unusable for the average user.

grayman ,

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

DigitalFrank ,

This is the real reason. Google is an ad company, not a search engine.

Swarfega ,

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.

DNU ,

Yt doesn’t know who you are, but it knows damn well who was last logging in from that PC/IP.

aidan ,

Same useragent and window size too.

Zink ,

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.

Swarfega ,

Indeed.

ZambiblasianOgre ,

Absolute cunts

Raiderkev ,

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

lud ,

It sucks because it’s sometimes (but not very often) useful but it’s not like they are under any obligation to support it or are getting any money from doing it.

modus ,

Isn’t caching how anti-paywall sites like 12ft.io work?

lud ,

I dunno, but I suspect that they aren’t using Google’s cache if that’s the case.

My guess is that the site uses its own scrapper that acts like a search engine and because websites want to be seen to search engines they allow them to see everything. This is just my guess, so it might very well be completely wrong.

megaman ,

At least some of these tools change their “user agent” to be whatever google’s crawler is.

When you browse in, say, Firefox, one of the headers that firefox sends to the website is “I am using Firefox” which might affect how the website should display to you or let the admin knkw they need firefox compatibility (or be used to fingerprint you…).

You can just lie on that, though. Some privacy tools will change it to Chrome, since that’s the most common.

Or, you say “i am the google web crawler”, which they let past the paywall so it can be added to google.

sfgifz ,

Or, you say “i am the google web crawler”, which they let past the paywall so it can be added to google.

If I’m not wrong, Google has a set range of IP addresses for their crawlers, so not all sites will let you through just because your UA claims to be Googlebot

Flax_vert ,

Need the tea!!!

drislands ,

Was that not something the Wayback Machine could have solved?

icedterminal ,

Depends. Not every site, or its pages, will be crawled by the Internet Archive. Many pages are available only because someone has submitted it to be archived. Whereas Google search will typically cache after indexed.

Tangent5280 ,

Would you be willing to share more? It’s fine if you don’t want to, I wouldn’t either.

Raiderkev ,

No, it was pretty personal, and also a legal matter, so I gotta take the high road.

verity_kindle ,

Respect for your discretion.

NoRodent ,
@NoRodent@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

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 ,

We must archive all the things

eating3645 ,

I will archive you!

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I would love to archive the comment on archive.org but it seems like a bit of a spammy way to do that…

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved.

Astronautical ,

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

pastaPersona ,

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 ,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

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.

_number8_ ,

ostensibly it takes a lot of space to cache that much data, but seeing as they own youtube this should be nothing in comparison

Emerald ,

i would guess they have it cached still anyways.

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