
Hey Google, I want my cache links back - vijaydev
http://jacquesmattheij.com/hey+google+I+want+my+cache+links+back
======
jannes
Just google for

    
    
      cache:http://www.example.com/
    

and it will take you directly to the cached site. This is particularly nice in
combination with Chrome's omnibar where you just have to prepend "cache:"
before the current URL, hit return, and it will automatically show the cached
version of the page you are viewing.

~~~
bradleyland
Cool trick. Completely fails at discoverability though.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Caches are kind of a touchy subject. I have no information that they are, but
I would not be surprised if Google was inexorably moving toward a 'no user
accessible cache' policy. The reasoning is pretty simple, people push things
they don't mean too, then they 'fix' it, but if the GoogleBot was in the area
your 'fix' may not be as durable as you hoped. Recent examples are iPhone 5
leaks on carrier sites, mis-priced sales at Walmart.com, and support sites at
HP for products that were going to exist but now aren't.

Clearly its not Google's fault that people screw up and they happen to look at
the wrong time, but a strict interpretation of Google's mission would suggest
that keeping bad pages 'cached' isn't part of it. And while the vast majority
of cached pages provide a great service like when HN exposure overloads a web
site you can still see the content, Google cannot practically fix every cache
page where the owner doesn't want it cached (they might not even know it is)
and then fix it. (Yes you can email them to have them spike the cache but how
many people realize that?)

A couple of the newspaper types went after them claiming the cache was an
'illegal copy' but of course the page didn't say 'no-cache' (which would keep
it out of most CDN's as well so its painful).

So the cache feature is useful, but not everyone thinks its a good thing. If
they have annoyed Google enough, Google may have just said 'screw it, lets get
rid of this capability for end users.' But again, that is just speculation
based on seeing it get harder and harder to 'discover' that Google has a
cached copy somewhere.

~~~
franze

      <meta name="googlebot" content="noarchive">
    

or

    
    
      <meta name="robots" content="noarchive">
    

renders the google cache "user inaccessible"

------
guelo
Another thing that has been annoying me lately is that it seems like like I
have to add a + in front of every word or Google might decide without any
indication that it will completely ignore it.

~~~
dolbz
This is especially annoying as in days gone by if you added + to the query
they'd show a message explaining that you don't need to use + as Google only
returns results containing all the terms in your query. I wonder when they
stopped doing this?

~~~
RobertKohr
Because that would lead to the dreaded no results, which google doesn't like
to show a user.

------
wgx
The OP raises a wider point:

    
    
      For the longest time google made good on their promise to keep their search page simple and easy to use.
      Now, bit by bit the search page is getting more filled up with cruft that you don't need and stuff that you do need gets removed.
    

I am getting a hunch (just a vague feeling) that we might be approaching a
time where a new, simpler search experience would pick up a lot of users -
maybe amongst us HN/early adopters?

~~~
mike-cardwell
If you want Googles search results, but without all the interface spaff, use
Scroogle: <https://ssl.scroogle.org/>

~~~
icebraining
I really dislike services like that. Searches cost real money to Google, using
them through that is almost stealing, in my opinion. Just use a different
search engine.

EDIT: I'd like if someone would reply if they disagree. Do you dispute that
each search costs money to Google, or what?

~~~
thematt
I feel no guilt. Google's main revenue stream is advertisements, which I will
never click on. Yet, I still use Google continuously. Does that mean I'm
stealing? Either way I'm getting something for free and not contributing to
their revenue.

~~~
icebraining
Hmm, I suppose that's true - I never click them either, if only because my
eyes skip them unconsciously - but on the other hand, accepting $20 from my
aunt or taking it from her wallet are very different, despite her ending up
with the same money.

------
Matt_Cutts
If it makes people feel better, I just spent around an hour debating the
points from this discussion in my office with other people who work on
Google's search UI and search quality.

P.S. If people want to leave examples, for example "If I do the search
["society of spectacles"] I get a result which doesn't have that phrase," I'm
happy to pass that to people here to debug.

~~~
huhtenberg
> _If it makes people feel better_...

It depends entirely on the outcome of the debate.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
I'm just speaking personally, but I'm on the side of most of the folks here. A
senior engineer is looking into the ["society of spectacles"] search now, for
example.

What would be most helpful would be constructive examples of bad queries, bad
experiences, or concrete proposals for how to improve Google's results page or
results UI.

~~~
nowarninglabel
Is it concrete enough that getting to the cache is now a series of 3 actions:
1) Hover over result 2) Move mouse to hover over double-arrow (careful don't
miss it or you go back to step 1) 3) Click on Cache link

Whereas before it was just: 1) Click on cache link.

Not to mention the accessibility issues, which I'm asking an expert in the
field about now to see how it affects screen readers.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
I would think this would break most screen readers, as you have to perform a
click to get the cache link. If a screen reader didn't understand js, however,
then the cache link may still be in the html (but not if it is loaded via
javascript).

------
wladimir
I don't agree this is necessarily bad. Arguably, "view cache" is a feature for
power-users that know what they're doing.

Moving the cache link into that pop-up did simplify the user interface in the
most common case, in which the user just wants to view the real link. It no
longer has to be rendered for every result.

IMO it just takes some getting used to that the cache link has been moved. Or
are you viewing pages from cache _that_ regularly that the extra clicks/mouse
moves are a problem?

~~~
joakin
Depends on the users, for example my non-techie partner always clicks on the
cache link just because it highlights the words that she searched for on the
page.

For some people it may be an important move

~~~
wladimir
Hmm yes I can see it used for that. However, that will only work for simple
passive pages. "view cache" is inherently incompatible with pages that render
from javascript (or that make extra requests to get the content). These get
broken, and as a growing amount of sites is affected this might be another one
of the reasons for obscuring the option.

~~~
barrkel
Pages that render from javascript or make extra requests to get the content
were broken already. They fail REST and thus they're not easily cacheable. We
shouldn't encourage them outside of those specific web apps for which linking
is not a relevant operation.

------
ars
This does not bode well for the employees at google. You get extra features
like this (instant preview) when you have too much manpower - you look for
things for your employees to do.

But if your customers don't want it, and you can't find anything else for them
to do then you start reducing the workforce.

~~~
cooperadymas
When Google released Instant Preview they claimed it increases click through
rates to a website. This makes me think a good number of customers do want it.

Edit: here is the announcement:
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-
result...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-results-
instant-previews.html)

"In our testing, we’ve found that people who use Instant Previews are about 5%
more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. "

~~~
chalst
_people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with
the results they click._

This sounds too little to justify a UI change that increases complexity.

~~~
abraham
5% of a billion monthly users is more then enough justification. At Google's
scale fractions of a percent are often worth it.

~~~
chalst
That's 100% of the same user base who have to deal with a more complex user
interface with more usability snafus and one that evolves less well. If you
make a couple of dozen such UI changes based on similarly narrow evidence of
improvement, you will end up with a mess.

~~~
abraham
It isn't 100% of the user base. I would guess the majority of users don't
care/use/know about page caches so overall it is a simpler UI. The simpler UI
will improve the UX for 80% users (lets say for the sake of the argument) and
the other 20% will either be able to figure out the marginal increased
complexity or will be outweighed by the improvement of the previously
mentioned users.

------
jen_h
I didn't realize they'd hidden cached pages this way...but here's a data point
on human behavior that may be non-optimal for Google:

So, yesterday, I searched for something on Google, found what I wanted, went
to click Cache and it wasn't there.

I didn't think to go mousing over the page...I instead did what any red-
blooded search engine user in a hurry would do: I copied the URL, pasted it
into Bing, and viewed cache from there. 0_o

------
haasted
Another thing I find more annoying with the recent changes is that previously
visited links are not marked as such any longer. When searching for the
solution to a problem, it is quite nice to easily know which pages have
already been visited using a different search query.

~~~
dolinsky
Previously visited links show up as the default purple for me in Chrome. Maybe
it's due to a particular plugin you have installed?

~~~
haasted
No, I tested in three browsers[1] prior to writing my comment, just to avoid
getting caught in something like what you suggest. :) The behaviour seems
consistent across all three, independent of whether I'm logged into my Google
account or not.

[1] Firefox, Chrome and IE.

~~~
mdwrigh2
Interesting. Links show up as purple if visited for me as well.

------
meow
I haven't noticed this till now and now I'm shocked. I hated the preview so
much that I had to use a custom stylish addon script for firefox to block the
annoying thing. Now that the cache is moved to preview, I'm stuck between
getting annoyed with preview again or losing the cache links :(. I just don't
understand what they were trying to solve with all these changes...

~~~
mhoofman
Google is starting to become a lot less minimal. I like their current design
direction but as the OP stated in the article the cruft is starting to build
up.

------
apakian
"For the longest time google made good on their promise to keep their search
page simple and easy to use. Now, bit by bit the search page is getting more
filled up with cruft that you don't need and stuff that you do need gets
removed."

I completely agree with this...

------
acabal
I thought I was going crazy when I realized the cache links were gone... good
to know I wasn't the only one and that they're still there, though hidden (I
never click on the preview arrows).

~~~
Maxious
I thought it was some magical new robots.txt line you could use if you hate
people trying to read your content.

------
fatalerrorx3
If the feature wasn't widely used I'm sure that's the reason for it's
disappearance...Google has a tendency to make decisions by the numbers, if
they don't see engagement with certain features, they get the axe rather
quickly

------
altrego99
Not to mention the annoying +1 button after each link. I don't want to +1
unless I visited it, and I don't mind taking the extra step of sharing if I
found a webpage interesting!

------
soitgoes
I mainly went to the cache link. Getting easy access to the highlighted search
terms was so useful.

~~~
hebejebelus
If you're on Chrome, check out Google Quick Scroll for that:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/okanipcmceoeemlbjn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/okanipcmceoeemlbjnmnbdibhgpbllgc)

------
zobzu
i too dislike the previews. there's a few things that i find useful tho:

\- timeline

\- image search

\- cache (when it was there and working. lately, it didnt work aka it tries to
fetch from the server and if its down, which is what i often use cache for,
then it fails)

hum, well thats it.

special search commands used to be cool but they don't work so well now (i
mean the filetype stuff and all). and the rest are just bloated reactions to
"bing fear" or something

~~~
ugh
You don’t use the timeframe option? I use that one all the time, it’s
invaluable to me.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I very very rarely do a search where I don't timeframe limit it. This makes me
wonder why Google insist on hiding that option every time I visit the search
page. I guess they want me to go somewhere else unless I'm going to log in.

------
decklin

        .vspii {
          display: none !important;
        }
    

Will hide the buttons that display the "preview" thing when you mouse over
them.

------
pasbesoin
I'm just getting fucking sick of it. This includes supporting a number of
"normal" users on Google products. Of course, my/our opinion doesn't count.
Nonetheless, Google UI and support ( _cough_ ) are now actively pushing me
away.

------
dshearmur
I was bored so wrote some JS to put the links back. Only works in chrome.

As a userscript: <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/114144>

Or as a bookmarklet: javascript:(function(){var
c=document.querySelectorAll('a[href*="webcache.googleusercontent.com"]');for(var
a=0,b;b=c[a];a++){b.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.querySelector("h3.r").parentElement.insertBefore(b)}})()

------
mwexler
The iPad "Tablet" Google results experience has removed them completely, no
instant preview, no "hidden" swipe-to-expose (that I could find). You have to
go to the "classic" version, via a link on the bottom of the page, to get them
back.

The classic version? It's the one we used to have: no instant preview, Cache
link present on almost every listing.

So, at least on some platforms, the info-dense but useful version is sill
around...

~~~
0x12
Can you please post the link to your classic version?

I'd like to see what happens when I hit that link from a different platform.

~~~
mwexler
Using User Agent Switcher on Firefox, I set my UA to iPad and went to Google.
The link for the "Classic" version was:
[http://www.google.com/?hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&...](http://www.google.com/?hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&nota=1&sa=X&ei=Nj6DTqeHPITMgQeV5pAh&ved=0CAAQyRM)

However, when I set my UA back to Default (Firefox), this link did not appear
to do anything. YMMV.

~~~
0x12
Ok, thank you for trying that.

------
illdave
One of the things he mentions here is that some sites don't have a cached link
at all - it may be because they're explicitly telling Google not to cache the
page. You can do that using the noarchive tag, which looks like this:

<meta name="robots" content="noarchive" />

------
huhtenberg
That's a minor annoyance compared to the changes they made to the search
logic. I noticed lately that way too frequently now the first result page
contains irrelevant junk unless I resort to using quotes. And even then quoted
words appear to be mangled and ignored at will.

Complained about it too here, about a month ago, which is when it appears to
have started - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2935261>

------
sifi
I just noticed it yesterday (or maybe the day before).

It is really a bummer when you are _used_ to going to a website to use their
feature and the feature isn't there anymore.

------
JonnieCache
Easily solved with this chrome extension which gives you a dropdown with links
to the google cache, as well as The Internet Archive, Yahoo Cache, MSN
cache(Bing Cache), CoralCDN, Gigablast, and WebCite.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/coblegoildgpecccij...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/coblegoildgpecccijneplifmeghcgip)

or, as others have said, just google for cache:<url>

------
VinceWilliams
Install the Hide Google Instant Previews Userscript in Greasemonkey:
<http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/90222>

Replace one line of code with this:

var css = ".vspib {display: none;} .vshid {display: inline; margin-
left:7px;}";

You'll get "cache" and "similar" links back.

Thanks, bitmap.

------
machrider
I agree with the author, but a convenient workaround is to use a bookmarklet:
[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/07/useful-google-
bookm...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/07/useful-google-
bookmarklets.html)

------
brianobush
I often use cache links instead of going to the actual site since it was
faster and your search terms were highlighted in the document. Now it takes a
bit of work to get to the cache link.

------
ck2
Great extension for firefox:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/resurrect-
pag...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/resurrect-pages/)

------
alain94040
To be fair, I suspect that the cache link was used by 0.1% of all users. Even
I almost never use it, and I am likely to be a power user.

------
Daps0l
i also dislike the previews :'( and the cached link was nice and easy, now an
annoying extra click, etc. Why oh why?

Aaaargh!

------
lwhi
Google implement AB testing don't they. They'll probably be back tomorrow -
don't worry.

------
pclark
I used the cache links purely because it hilighted my search terms, just me?

------
itsnotvalid
Mine is still here.

(Just don't get me wrong, what I really miss is the "Related" link)

~~~
0x12
Phased roll-out? AB test in progress?

This seems to have started a couple of days ago.

~~~
itsnotvalid
Is cache:xxx method still working?

------
quellhorst
This is Google being dumbed down for the average user.

------
0xABADC0DA
I think they're trying to make their interface look exactly like Bing so the
only way Microsoft can compete is by having better search results.

You guys at HN probably don't check out Bing very much, but many of the UI
changes in Google were in Bing first... hover over a search result to show
more info on the side, image search with just images (details when you hover),
infinite scroll on image search, background image on main search page, etc.

~~~
jen_h
Which is _terrible._ I use Bing as a backup for Google when Google fails me
(not often), and I just don't like all of Bing's noise, the background
graphics, the sidebar stuff, the slow load time, the Facebook Like button
(FFS, WHY??), the "Check out our other services!" topbar that keeps the search
field from loading until it's finished, ugh.

It seems like Google is becoming more Bing-like with each passing day. This is
not a good thing.

What is great and always has been great about Google (and why, I believe, it's
a staple for many of us after over a decade!) is its great results _paired
with simplicity_ and fast load time (please don't get me started on Instant
Search, it's not a pretty rant).

Google Search, be yourself, the self that's kept you as the autocompleted "g"
in my URL bar for well over a decade now. Don't go chasing waterfalls. They
take _forever_ to load.

~~~
kongqiu
DuckDuckGo! I'd say the search results are better/less cluttered about 60% of
the time, and google or bing are only a !bang away...

~~~
jen_h
Hrm, DDG's Privacy Policy <http://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html> is enough
reason to move over, methinks! Now to move muscle memory from g to d. ;)

------
zackattack
Search is just one of those things where power users will always rule, because
in an information economy whoever has best access to information becomes
dominant, and the copycats follow in order to keep up. So a search engine has
to cater to power users.

------
sbierwagen

      Now that's a pretty dumb move. If it isn't broken *please* 
      don't fix it.
    
      >*please*
    

Does his blog software not allow him to italicize text?

