Google Search results will now include the historical context of links, providing information about recently updated web pages, the company announced on Wednesday. This initiative is part of a collaboration between the Mountain View-based tech giant and the Internet Archive – a US-based non-profit digital library that archives billions of web pages for future reference. This development builds upon the removal of the “cached” links feature in February that allowed users to view an older version of the web page.
Archived Web Pages on Google Search
In a blog post, the Internet Archive announced that archived web pages will now show in Google search results. To access previous versions of links, users need to select the three-dot option that appears next to a search result and choose More about this page in the About this result panel. It will show up alongside a link to the previous versions of that website with the See previous versions text.
The new feature leverages the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, displaying the website exactly how it looked on a previous date.
In a statement given to 9to5Google, Google said, “we’ve added links to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to our ‘About this page’ feature, to give people quick context and make this helpful information easily accessible through Search.”
Google’s new archived links feature is still being rolled out and users globally may be able to see it in the coming days. It will be available to users in 40 languages. Gadgets 360 staff members were able to verify its availability on multiple websites.
While the tech giant previously offered similar functionality with one of its oldest features dubbed “cached” links, it was silently removed in February. Following its removal, users could leverage the operator “cache:[insert URL]” but this feature was also speculated to be removed soon. At the time, Google Search Liason theorised that one of the ways similar functionality could be brought back was via a link to the Wayback Machine, and this feature has finally been rolled out.