Hyderabad: Google has officially retired its cache link feature, which provided a snapshot of a webpage the last time it was indexed. In response to a post on X (formerly Twitter), Google's search liaison confirmed the development, saying, "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."
The feature allows you to view a webpage as Google sees it, which is useful for a variety of different reasons beyond just checking if a page is struggling to load. Many users use this tool to verify the legitimacy of a website, and SEO managers use it to examine their sites for problems. A lot of users, especially those in the media industry, check websites' caches to determine if any content has been added or removed recently.
Earlier, an "about this result" dialogue with the Cached button at the bottom right would pop up on clicking on the three-dot menu next to a result. Last month, Google removed some underutilised features in Google Assistant "to focus on delivering the best possible user experience". As per the list shared by the company, Google removed 17 features.
Some features being removed include -- the functionality that allows users to use their voice to send an email, video, or audio message-- users will also not be able to use their voice to perform tasks such as making a reservation, sending a payment, or posting on social media.
Users can still access the cached version of a webpage by adding ‘cache:’ as a prefix to the link in Google Search until the functionality goes down forever, the company said. However, Google did not share any timeline on when it will be removed. Sullivan hinted that the search giant might replace the cached button with links from the Internet Archive, but that doesn’t seem to be in the work right now.
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