{"id":36392,"date":"2022-04-05T15:00:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/?p=36392"},"modified":"2022-04-04T09:18:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T07:18:57","slug":"everything-you-need-to-know-about-google-cache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-google-cache\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything You Need to Know About Google Cache"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Caching is an incredibly common practice of storing information in a way that assures fast retrieval when needed. You can use <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/best-wordpress-caching-plugins\/\">caching plugins for WordPress<\/a> to improve your website\u2019s performance. When someone visits your website, their browser will cache your website\u2019s contents. If you use a <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/what-is-a-cdn\/\">content delivery network<\/a>, you\u2019ll use caching without even knowing it. Your website, its pages, and its content get cached all the time and by many different entities.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]That includes search engines, most notably \u2013 Google. If you\u2019re not sure what Google cache is and how it works, or why you should care about it at all, don\u2019t worry \u2013 we\u2019ll try to tell you everything you need to know about Google cache in this article.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]We\u2019ll cover:<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;22px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#what-is-google-cache\">What Is Google Cache?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#how-is-google-cache-useful-to-your-website\">How Is Google Cache Useful to Your Website?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#how-to-view-google-cache\">How to View Google Cache?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#how-to-clear-google-cached-pages\">How to Clear Google Cached Pages<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;80px&#8221;][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=&#8221;new-top-picks-banner&#8221;][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;80px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"what-is-google-cache\"><\/a>What Is Google Cache?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;21px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder   qodef-has-border \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"518\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/What-Is-Google-Cache.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"What Is Google Cache\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/What-Is-Google-Cache.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/What-Is-Google-Cache-300x160.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/What-Is-Google-Cache-768x411.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/What-Is-Google-Cache-620x331.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Google cache is the popular search engine\u2019s practice to save a version of the pages on your website to memory. <strong>The process of caching is fairly simple \u2013 Google\u2019s crawlers will visit your website to index it.<\/strong> That\u2019s a usual part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/how-search-engines-work\/\">workings of search engines<\/a>, and it\u2019s something you should want to happen, as it enables the website to appear in search engine results.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]While these crawlers are at work indexing your pages, they also take snapshots of whatever they see. <strong>It\u2019s these copies that serve as the cached versions of your website\u2019s pages.<\/strong> People can see them when your website comes up in search engine results. They only need to access the menu by pressing the three vertical dots that appear next to search results and clicking on the \u201ccached\u201d button in the lower righthand corner.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Doing so will bring up the cached page, along with the information about the date and time when the cache was created. Anyone viewing the page will have the option to view its full version, but also a text-only version and the source code for the page. <strong>The cached pages might differ from the live pages on your website for many reasons, including the most obvious \u2013 you\u2019ll change your website over time.<\/strong> This is one of the reasons why cached pages aren\u2019t always an accurate representation of a page.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"how-is-google-cache-useful-to-your-website\"><\/a>How Is Google Cache Useful to Your Website?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;21px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder    \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"553\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-Is-Google-Cache-Useful-to-Your-Website.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"How Is Google Cache Useful to Your Website\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-Is-Google-Cache-Useful-to-Your-Website.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-Is-Google-Cache-Useful-to-Your-Website-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-Is-Google-Cache-Useful-to-Your-Website-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-Is-Google-Cache-Useful-to-Your-Website-620x354.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]The main utility of Google cache is that it provides a backup of your page in case something happens to it and users can\u2019t reach it. <strong>Thanks to Google cache, when this happens visitors can find the cached version of the page and find whatever information it contained at the time it was cached.<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]There are a couple of added benefits to your website\u2019s pages being cached by Google.<strong> Because Google tells when a page was last cached and we know that caching happens when your website is being indexed, you can see how often Google crawls your website.<\/strong> That could serve as a signal of how valuable a source Google thinks your website is. <strong>At the very least, it will tell you the last time Google crawled the page.<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Google cache can also tell you a bit about what your competitors might be doing. <strong>By comparing older and existing versions of their pages, you might see specific steps in optimizations they took, and copy them if they were successful.<\/strong> So even though Google caching doesn\u2019t directly improve your SEO, you can still use it for those purposes.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]The great thing about Google cache is that there aren\u2019t any significant downsides to it. <strong>Since you\u2019re not in charge of caching the pages, it doesn\u2019t take up any of your time or resources.<\/strong> There aren\u2019t any additional security concerns arising from them, either. The only problem that might come about with Google cache is that the cached version of the website doesn\u2019t match the live version, so if your page is unavailable people will see an inaccurate version of it.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"how-to-view-google-cache\"><\/a>How to View Google Cache?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]There are two ways you can go about viewing Google\u2019s cache of a page on your or any other website. <strong>The first method requires you to find the page on a Google search results page.<\/strong> When you do, you can click on the symbol next to the result. If the symbol in question is three vertical dots, clicking on it will bring up the \u201cabout this result\u201d card.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;50px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder   qodef-has-border \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"659\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/About-This-Result.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"About This Result\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/About-This-Result.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/About-This-Result-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/About-This-Result-768x522.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/About-This-Result-620x422.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]At the time of writing, the \u201cabout this results&#8221; option is still in its beta testing phase. But if it is available for the site you\u2019re interested in, all you have to do is look to the lower righthand corner for the \u201ccached\u201d button. <strong>Pressing it will bring up the cached version of the page.<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]As we mentioned, the \u201cabout this result\u201d card isn\u2019t available for all results.<strong> If you don\u2019t see the three dots, you\u2019ll likely see a small downward-pointing arrow next to the result.<\/strong> Clicking on it will bring up a button that says \u201ccached.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;50px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder   qodef-has-border \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"577\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Cached.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"Cached\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Cached.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Cached-300x179.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Cached-768x457.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Cached-620x369.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]That\u2019s the button you need to click to reach the cached version of the page.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]<strong>If you already know the address of the page whose cached version you want to see, you can save yourself a Google search and take a shortcut.<\/strong> In your browser\u2019s address bar, simply type \u201ccache:\u201d followed by the web address you want to see, and you\u2019ll access the version of the website as cached by Google.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"how-to-clear-google-cached-pages\"><\/a>How to Clear Google Cached Pages<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;21px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder    \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"553\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-to-Clear-Google-Cached-Pages.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"How to Clear Google Cached Pages\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-to-Clear-Google-Cached-Pages.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-to-Clear-Google-Cached-Pages-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-to-Clear-Google-Cached-Pages-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/How-to-Clear-Google-Cached-Pages-620x354.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]<strong>When Google\u2019s crawler indexes your website and creates the versions of its pages for caching, those versions will stay up until Google\u2019s crawler revisits your website.<\/strong> If you made changes to the pages and you want the cached version to reflect those changes, you can try telling Google to <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/how-to-tell-google-to-recrawl-wordpress-site\/\">recrawl your website<\/a>.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]If you want to outright remove Google\u2019s cache of any page, <strong>you can do so using Google\u2019s Removals or Remove Outdated Content tool.<\/strong> You should make sure that you read up on the tools first, as they have different use cases. Also, don\u2019t expect for the cache to be removed forever \u2013 the best you can hope for with this tool is a temporary removal of the cached page. When Google\u2019s crawler revisits your website and indexes the page again, it will cache it again.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]<strong>So is there a way to stop Google from caching a page altogether?<\/strong> There is. Just as you can use the \u201cnoindex\u201d tag in your <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wordpress-robots-txt-file\/\">robots.txt file<\/a> to prevent the crawler from indexing pages, you can use the \u201cnoarchive\u201d tag, in the same way, to stop it from archiving \u2013 i.e. caching \u2013 any page.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\">Let\u2019s Wrap It Up!<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Google cache is a useful way to access copies of your website\u2019s pages without all the fuss of actually making them. It can also be useful for your website\u2019s users, as they can always access the cached versions of your website, even if it\u2019s temporarily unavailable.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Still, Google cache isn\u2019t perfect. You have no control over the cached information \u2013 you can access it just like any other person on the web, and you can\u2019t edit it. You can, however, remove out-of-date cached versions of pages, or prevent Google from caching any page altogether.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever wondered what&#8217;s Google cache and if it&#8217;s doing anything good for your website? We&#8217;ll tell you everything there is to know about it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9295,"featured_media":36402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[241,163,4],"class_list":["post-36392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources","tag-cache","tag-performance","tag-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}