Google’s Martin Splitt said something we all know to be true for a while now, he said on Twitter that the “cached view is a basically unmaintained legacy feature.” I asked Martin if he is cool with me sharing this and he said “yea sure, I think we’ve said that before too.” This does not mean Google is going to get rid of the cache, as John Mueller of Google clarified below.
The last time Google updates the cache results page was back in June 2015 I believe. Google did recently update how to access the cache page, when it added the about this result overlay feature:
But the cache page itself looks exactly the same, I think, from several years ago:
1) The cached view is a basically unmaintained legacy feature
2) The issue you describe is probably caused by something the sites in question do and has nothing to do with Wikipedia or the sites being major sites specifically— Martin Splitt (@g33konaut) April 14, 2021
Yea sure, I think we’ve said that before too ????
— Martin Splitt (@g33konaut) April 14, 2021
I wonder if this is a sign that Google may do away with the cache view at some point in the near future?
John said it is not going away:
I mean, there’s nothing fancy to do here — it just works the way it’s meant to work. It’s not going away, it’s just an older & stable feature. Legacy is not bad.
— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) April 15, 2021
Nothing is being discontinued. Just because it hasn’t changed in a while means nothing.
— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) April 15, 2021
Forum discussion at Twitter.