Each day, countless web pages emerge and disappear. Some of these pages cater to specific niche audiences, who greatly value their content. Losing access to such pages can be problematic. One way to mitigate this issue is by downloading the entire web page content to our computers, ensuring constant availability. However, this approach is not without drawbacks.
Downloading content is not the optimal solution because it doesn’t account for new content that may be published after the download. As a result, we will always lack access to the most up-to-date information. Thankfully, there are alternative solutions to address this problem. One such solution is utilizing the cache generated by Google for all indexed web pages. Additionally, using Cached View is another option worth considering. These methods allow users to access and view web pages as they appeared when last indexed by Google, ensuring some level of access to older versions of the content.
Access old web pages
Cached View is a website that provides access to copies of web pages that are no longer available on the internet, either temporarily or permanently. It offers a way to access the previously online version of a web page through the copy that Google creates as a backup to display the content, even in cases where the page is unavailable due to connection issues.
Another method offered by Cached View to access unavailable web pages is through Coral Content Distribution. This free p2p-based caching service utilizes the bandwidth of numerous web proxies to display the content, relieving server load. It is also used to retrieve content from web pages that are no longer accessible. However, it’s important to note that the cache stored through this system is not updated as frequently as Google’s cache.
When a web page has been offline for an extended period, the image stored by Google will be outdated and won’t display any content. In such cases, Cached View provides a solution by utilizing the Archive.org platform. This internet digital archive stores all the images generated by Google, chronologically preserving web page versions. Users can access the web page as it appeared on a specific date.
On the Cached View website, users can access the currently available online version of a web page, if it is still operational, by clicking the “Live Version” button. To access the latest image stored by Google, the “Google Web Cache” button is used. For viewing the history of a specific web page, users can enter the web page URL and click on the “Archive.org” button.
By default, if no specific option is selected, the results displayed on Cached View combine the cache stored by Google with the cache generated through Coral Content’s web proxies.
