Google partners with the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to enhance search results

You may remember that earlier this year Google took the decision to retire cache links from its search results. At the time this caused annoyance and frustration, but these feelings were tempered by the possibility of some form of future resurrection of the feature.

And now that time has come. Teaming up with the Internet Archive, Google search results now link back to cached Wayback Machine versions of pages in addition to the one that is currently live. The Internet Archive sees it as a continuation of its “commitment to preservation”.

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Available immediately, the feature can be accessed by performing a Google search as normal and then clicking the three-dot menu next to a result. In the About this Result panel, you can then click More About This Page for a link to the Wayback Machine page for that result. The Internet Archive explains:

Through this direct link, you’ll be able to view previous versions of a webpage via the Wayback Machine, offering a snapshot of how it appeared at different points in time. 

Sharing the news of the partnership with Google, director of the Wayback Machine, Mark Graham, says:

The web is aging, and with it, countless URLs now lead to digital ghosts. Businesses fold, governments shift, disasters strike, and content management systems evolve—all erasing swaths of online history. Sometimes, creators themselves hit delete, or bow to political pressure. Enter the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: for more than 25 years, it’s been preserving snapshots of the public web. This digital time capsule transforms our “now-only” browsing into a journey through internet history. And now, it’s just a click away from Google search results, opening a portal to a fuller, richer web -- one that remembers what others have forgotten.

The feature helps to provide historical context for results, and serves as a revealing glimpse back into the past.