Good grief, it was two weeks ago that we posted "News You Can Use: Finding The Google Cache":
I had actually forgotten about the Google cache but if memory serves it can be used to access some sites that are otherwise access verboten.
Not knowing it had already been superseded by this from Ars Technica, February 2:
Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.
Google will no longer be keeping a backup of the entire Internet. Google Search's "cached" links have long been an alternative way to load a website that was down or had changed, but now the company is killing them off. Google "Search Liaison" Danny Sullivan confirmed the feature removal in an X post, saying the feature "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 has been appearing and disappearing for some people since December, and currently, we don't see any cache links in Google Search. For now, you can still build your own cache links even without the button, just by going to "https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:" plus a website URL, or by typing "cache:" plus a URL into Google Search. For now, the cached version of Ars Technica seems to still work. All of Google's support pages about cached sites have been taken down....
....MUCH MORE
We may be approaching a fusion of dead internet theory with disappearing internet theory. As foretold by:
And bringing to mind the Luddite doggerel:
Decentralize, decentralizeOurs is not to monetize
