Google flushes cached search results forever Google has stopped offering links to cached versions of web pages alongside search results. A Friday Xeet from the Google Search Liaison Twitter/X account, which is run by a chap named Danny Sullivan, responded to netizens' queries about the absence of links to cached results, confirmed they've gone, and offered an explanation …
To be honest, I thought that had gone long ago, when the cached result link stopped being shown right under the search results. I never knew it had moved to the "about this result" screen.
I suppose so few people knew about it that the utilization was very low, and that's why it's going away? I can't imagine it costs a lot to maintain...
This. Probably too many important (read: "rich and powerful") entities were being embarrassed when their attempts at web-based historical revisionism failed due to Google's cached copies being used by journalists, lawyers, etc., to uncover and display-to-the-world that attempted revisionism.
Consequently those entities bribed and/or threatened (current mealy-mouthed euphemistic terminology: "influenced") Google into removing that feature.
This. Probably too many important (read: "rich and powerful") entities were being embarrassed when their attempts at web-based historical revisionism failed due to Google's cached copies being used by journalists, lawyers, etc., to uncover and display-to-the-world that attempted revisionism.
Convenient timing is convenient. The UK's Online Censorship Act has just got Royal Assent and is now law-
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cyberflashing-epilepsy-trolling-and-fake-news-to-put-online-abusers-behind-bars-from-today
Abusers, trolls, and predators online now face a fleet of tough new jailable offences from today (Wednesday 31 January), as offences for ‘cyberflashing’, sending death threats, and ‘epilepsy-trolling’ are written into the statute book after the Online Safety Act gained Royal Assent.
These new criminal offences will protect people from a wide range of abuse and harm online, including threatening messages, the non-consensual sharing of intimate images known as ‘revenge porn’, and sending fake news that aims to cause non-trivial physical or psychological harm.
So given there's up to 5yrs in jail now for 'fake news' and 'misinformation', publishing cached pages may have been seen as a liability by AlphaGoo. This however is a new Act of insanity-
179 False communications offence
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)the person sends a message (see section 182),
(b)the message conveys information that the person knows to be false,
(c)at the time of sending it, the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience, and
(d)the person has no reasonable excuse for sending the message.
So I guess 'climate anxiety' would come under that category. But wait, there's more-
180 Exemptions from offence under section 179
(1)A recognised news publisher cannot commit an offence under section 179.
(2)An offence under section 179 cannot be committed by the holder of a licence under the Broadcasting Act 1990 or 1996 in connection with anything done under the authority of the licence.
(3)An offence under section 179 cannot be committed by the holder of a multiplex licence in connection with anything done under the authority of the licence.
(4)An offence under section 179 cannot be committed by the provider of an on-demand programme service in connection with anything done in the course of providing such a service.
(5)An offence under section 179 cannot be committed in connection with the showing of a film made for cinema to members of the public.
So the MSM and the biggest providers of misinformation can carry on providing 'fake news'. Well, mostly ok given Ofcom becomes the arbiter of truthiness. AlphaGoo doesn't seem to have any of those exemptions available, so by only showing current pages can pass the buck. But as a PR guru once said-
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
OMG. We really will be safe from any other opinion that the "Official" one, won't we?
The official misinformation ones are enacted, but not yet in force. Ofcom needs to set up some review boards who can decide the offiical truth first and prosecutions can commence. This is one of the reasons why fake news outfits like Bbc Verify had become popular because they're angling to become arbiters of the truth. The EU's version is also due to launch real soon now. Then it'll be interesting to see what happens when UK and EU prosecute for different versions of the truth.
From what I remember, Google's cache facility was never particularly useful for that sort of thing in the first place. Certainly not compared to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
I don't think Google ever offered the option of displaying historical caches- only the most recent one- and (from what I remember) the cache link didn't last forever.
Also, they didn't appear to be available for all sites where the cache copy button wasn't available, even where Google clearly had *some* cached text in the summary. (*) That might imply there was a configuration setting Google voluntarily followed.
What the cache copy *was* useful for was to quickly and conveniently access sites and pages that were down or (e.g.) the small-to-midsized US news sites that- presumably- decided it wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with the GDPR when their audience was mainly local and simply displayed a "blocked" notice when accessed directly.
The Internet Archive still generally works for that, but it's a bit slower and less convenient if all you want to see is some likely inconsequential article linked to (and commented on) from elsewhere.
(*) I'd assumed this was the case with the recent change until I noticed it appeared to apply to pretty much *every* site I was trying and figured something was up.
The suggestion to link to the internet archive from Google Search is, shall we say, cheeky (harsher words spring to mind)
That would be a potentially massive uptick in server load for the internet archive - and, as the article pertinently mentions, Google give them no funding.
I use this functionality A LOT researching issues I encounter at work. Sometimes a relevant phrase or keyword will appear in Search, the post or blog entry may have been from several years ago, but when I go to the linked page, I get redirected to a newer version of the page and the post is not present. Rather than scour that site for content that MAY be relevant to my search, I could instead refer back to the Cached version from my Google Search result and immediately find what I had been searching for. HUGE time-saver.
Honestly, I've used it searching for my own older posts to the Reg. Searches for those generally turn up URLs with relative page numbers, i.e. page N of my posts, or of the first Forum page of a particular article. But those numbers change as I submit enough new posts to push them on to page N+1 and eventually further. The cached result was far more reliable.
《Great as the Internet Archive is, it doesn't have everything. Given that Google has some things IA doesn't have at all, if Google could work to import and backfill all of that content, it would be helpful.》
Another option might be for Google to provide to the Internet Archive private access to Google's cache especially on a IA cache miss. (IA indemnifying G when publishing the content.) IA might thereafter maintain those recovered pages at its discretion.
I actually preferred the name "Wayback Machine" as it was rather Doctor Snuggle~ish (Multi-Whereabouts Machine) [Odd fact: episodes 7 & 12 were co-scripted by Douglas Adams.]
《I'm not holding my breath.》Asphyxiation is almost certain.
I can see IA will eventually haved chronicled the total befoulment of the entire web as prophesied by Cory Doctorow.
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