Google is retiring its cache link feature, which provided a snapshot of a webpage the last time it was indexed. The “cached” link has been appearing less frequently lately, and now it is officially retired. According to Google’s search liaison, Danny Sullivan, the feature is no longer necessary since the internet is now faster and more reliable.
“Hey, catching up.Yes, it’s been removed. I know, it’s sad. I’m sad too,” wrote Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liason on its X handle. “It’s one of our oldest features. But it was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”
In 2021, Martin Splitt, a Google developer, referred to the cached view as a “basically unmaintained legacy feature.”
Google’s “Cached” button allows users to view an older version of a webpage. Initially located under an overflow menu next to search results, it was later moved under the “About This Result” overlay. While you can still access these pages using “cache:[insert URL]” in Google Search, this feature will soon be removed.
Sullivan suggests adding links to the Internet Archive from the cache link in About This Result. “For the information literacy goal of About The Result, I think it would also be a nice fit — allowing people to easily see how a page changed over time. No promises. We have to talk to them, see how it all might go — involves people well beyond me. But I think it would be nice all around,” he writes further.