How to Find or Remove Web Page Content By Using Google Cache Search?

Did you ever have a close look at the way search results are displayed by Google? Perhaps not, for the simple reason that the majority of searchers are interested in the list of websites only. There is surely not much of reason to look beyond it from the searcher’s perspective. How does it really matter to know anything more than that?  But there are instances when it might be very useful to know a little more about search displays. There could be times when a small symbol could assume a lot of importance to you when making use of the search results. How it can be useful and what are the technicalities involved in it have been discussed in this post.

Cached web pages

If you pay attention to the search results listing you would find a small green arrow that is placed just at the end of every URL on the list. There is a special significance of this arrow because it points to a special technical feature of Google search engines.  Every time Google spiders crawl web pages for the purpose of indexing, the crawled pages are saved in a repository in the form of cached pages. The green arrow is a sign of confirmation that the webpages of the website have been crawled and saved. To access the cached version of the web pages, which is a snapshot of the entire website, you have just to click on the arrow and select a cached option. The cached version of the page will be displayed before you. The timeline when the page was last crawled is also displayed.

Do you need to view a cached version of web pages?

Generally, clicking on the website URL would lead you to the webpage that you are looking for. However, there might be instances when the website accessibility might be difficult due to internet congestion or even the page might have been removed recently. In such cases, the only option to retrieve the page is to make use of Google cache search that would display the cached page.  You may even come across some websites that need subscription or registration for accessing. This can be avoided by accessing the cached version of the web pages.

A cached version of pages is a text only version without images. It is actually the view that Google sees during crawling. By viewing cached pages, you can get a better idea of how the page appears from the SEO perspective. How to optimize the page in a better way can be understood by viewing cached pages.

Faster accessibility of pages

It is imperative that the cached version is not the current version of web pages because Google crawls websites at a certain interval. Cached web pages take much lesser time to load and can be retrieved much faster as it reduces a load of the server by almost 80%. The cached version of the page that is displayed highlights the keywords that have been searched for. This method allows you to reach to the relevant information directly without having to scan through the entire page and speeds up the process of accessing information.  If keywords are not highlighted, you can use the Find command (^F) to target the relevant information in one go.

Finding old websites

The method of archiving cached files in Google search comes handy when you are looking for some websites that have been discontinued.  The last version of the website when it was indexed by Google for the last time is retained in the archive in the cached version.  It is not that you have to depend on Google only to access obsolete and old websites. You can avail the services of the Internet Archive that stores sites that date back to the last year of the previous century.

All sites are not cached

Although Google has the system of maintaining snapshots of everything that it crawls, it is discretionary on the part of websites avail this facility. Website owners can request Google to keep it out of the purview of indexing, in which case there will be no cached version available. The request can be sent by using a robot.txt file. Even if a website has been cached Google can be requested to remove it from its repository. This is applicable for private discussions sites that do not want to go public. When a website is removed or withdrawn from the web completely, its owners might not like that the record is retained anywhere and would, therefore, like to get it removed from Google cached records.

Since websites are meant to show up in search results, it is important to ensure that it has been crawled by search engines. Tools are available to detect the frequency of crawling and if you find that your website has not been crawled for long, investigate the cause to take immediate corrective action.

About the author: John Walker works for an SEO company and writes on interesting topics like Google cache search to narrate his experience in the field. Soccer attracts him very much and he is also an avid reader who is a fan of science fiction. Blogging is a hobby that he cares for and allows him to express his mind to the world.