According to Danny Sullivan, Google’s search liaison, the company has removed links to page caches from its search results page. The feature was initially intended to help users access pages that were slow to load in the past. However, since internet speeds have improved significantly, the feature has been deemed redundant and therefore retired.

The cache feature has been a useful tool for users to view webpages as Google sees them. It is not only helpful for accessing struggling sites, but also for SEO professionals to debug their sites or monitor competitors. Additionally, it has been a valuable news gathering tool for reporters. By using the cache, they can see exactly what information a company added or removed from a website. The cache has also provided a way to view details that people or companies might have tried to delete from the web. Furthermore, if a site was blocked in your region, Google’s cache offered a great alternative to a VPN.

Users could access a webpage’s cache using one of two methods. Firstly, there was a “Cached” button located at the bottom of the “About this result” panel, which could be accessed via the three-dot menu next to a search result. Alternatively, users could add the prefix “cache:” to a URL before conducting a search to open the cached version of the webpage.

Over the past few months, the cache links have been removed gradually, but the process is not yet complete. Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable noticed the intermittent disappearance in early December. By late January, Danny Sullivan confirmed that the links were entirely gone. He also revealed that the “cache:” search operator would be discontinued in the near future.

The writing was on the wall for a while about cached links going away. In early 2021, Google engineer Martin Splitt referred to the cached view as a “basically unmaintained legacy feature.”

Google currently has no plans to replace the feature. However, Sullivan hopes links to the Internet Archive could be added instead to demonstrate how a webpage changed over time. “No promises,” he said. “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.”