What Is a Cached Page?
A cached page is a “snapshot” Google takes when it visits a webpage. When Google makes a cached page, it records how the page appears at a specific date and time. Google won’t record any changes or updates to the webpage until it takes another snapshot.
Cached pages are stored on servers, where users can request to view them. There can be several cached versions of a single webpage.
Say Google visits “ www.youdomain.com/example” on September 15th at 5:55 pm. It’ll take a snapshot of the content on the page once it fully loads, then creates a cached page.
The page gets stored in an index until Google next visits the page again and takes another snapshot.
Why Does Google Cache Pages?
Google creates cached pages so it can quickly and reliably present users with a web page that responds the same way no matter how many visits it receives or who visits it. Though most users will see a live webpage, others will see a cached page.
When you visit a web page, there are a lot of processes that take place to load the page. Pages sometimes don’t load, don’t respond, or change as you interact with them. To avoid this, Google sometimes presents a cached version of the webpage.
Since cached pages are “pre-loaded,” they’re easier to retrieve and present to the user.
How to View a Cached Page
Most viewers will see the live, up-to-date version of your page. Because cached pages are “snapshots” of a page, some users sometimes do not see changes you make to your page. Still, it can be useful to check out the cached pages Google has for your website.
To check what your pages look like or when they were last cached, try these 3 steps:
