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In what seems to be yet another useful feature Google has apparently and quietly removed, viewing Google's cached versions of websites appears to now be impossible. Their documentation is predictably obsolete, as a "down arrow" no longer exists in Google's results, and the new three-dot widget pulls up an "About this result" "beta" feature that as far as I know I didn't sign up to be part of.

Is access to Google's caches gone, or is there an undocumented method to access them?

Cache is gone

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

Click the Cached button in the lower right hand corner of your screenshot.

enter image description here

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    I missed that, thank you! Google needs to update their documentation.
    – glenviewjeff
    Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 15:37
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    That cached button is gone, replaced by a button labeled similar. (June 2021) (edit: some links have cached buttons, some don't)
    – user3015682
    Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 23:36
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    The way it seems to be going: Google has a lot of cached data already in place, and offers links to that cached data, but it looks like they are moving away from that more and more, not adding new caches. I can find old caches that may have been popular enough to be kept, but not newer ones and not obscure (rarely sought) ones either. I do believe there are a few websites out there like reputation.com that collaborate with google to remove caches that might damage privacy or character. Most likely this cache feature will slowly disappear, like the controversial live search suggestions have.
    – osirisgothra
    Commented Mar 16, 2022 at 12:58
  • @osirisgothra - What “controversial live search suggestions” ?
    – TheMaskedCucumber
    Commented Aug 4, 2023 at 17:50
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The cache feature is retired

In February 2024, the decision to retire the cache feature entirely was announced. Some workarounds, like going to https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:example.com or typing cache:example.com in Google search worked for some time after the "cached" button vanished, but now they simply redirect to regular searches.

Your alternative is to hope that another popular service like Archive.org backed up the page. Additionally, webmasters can use Google Search Console for their own pages.

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  • The accepted answer looks to be still up to date for the web search results that I have just reviewed. Please provide context / source / how did you get to this conclusion. Another possibility I suggest you to consider is to slighty change the wording to avoid generalize the no longer availability of the cached page feature.
    – Rubén - Volunteer Moderator - ♦
    Commented Mar 10, 2023 at 10:25
  • @Rubén It's possible that they're doing A/B testing. On both mobile and desktop I see the popup with no cache button. I used to see a cache button on desktop. I never saw it on mobile (except when requesting the desktop version).
    – Laurel
    Commented Mar 10, 2023 at 11:09
  • A long time ago I read somewhere in the SO / SE universe Your mileage might vary... that is specially true regarding Google Search: it might be a thing of A/B testing, app used (Web, iOS, Android) country domain (.com, .com.mx, .es, etc.) personalized results, ...
    – Rubén - Volunteer Moderator - ♦
    Commented Mar 10, 2023 at 11:14
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    As of December 2019, Google removed both the cache button and cache operator, see here arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/… Oddly, they seem to have changed their mind... sort of, and announced on Google Search that they will offer a link to the Internet Archive's result for web pages in mid-November 2024.
    – Ellie K
    Commented Nov 25 at 8:00
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Some sites decide to add the do-not-cache tag to the page. This appears to be common to sites that begin charging for content.

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