There is a saying that if you put something on the internet, it always stays there in one form or another. While it is not completely true, there are some cache services that capture the snapshot of a webpage and keep it stored in archives for a long long time. We can use these cache or archive services to check how a webpage looked a few days, months or even years ago.
Here is how we can quickly view the cached or older versions of any website in a few seconds:
- Visit https://cachedview.com/ in your web browser. We recommend Google Chrome or Vivaldi web browser.
- Type or copy/paste the URL for which you want to view the cached version in the text box labeled URL.
- Click on either the Google Web Cache or the Archive.org buttons. This will open a new tab to display a cached version of the webpage using Google Web Cache or Archive.org depending on which one you decided to you for viewing the older version of that webpage.
- If you want to check the current version of the website, you can click on the Live Version button.
Google Web Cache is a cached version of the webpages stored by Google in order to speed ups search results. These cached versions are purged and updated from time to time. When a website is updated, Google also updates the cached version soon. When a website has some problem and we cannot view it normally, then we can use Google Web Cache to check its earlier version.
On the other hand, Archive.org hosts the snapshots of webpages for a very long time. We can basically choose a time and date to find how a webpage looked in the past. It is fun to use Archive.org and see how today’s very popular websites looked like when they were starting out in early 1990’s such as Google, Amazon, Domino’s Pizza, eBay and more.
At the same time, it must be mentioned that not all websites or webpages are stored in the cached. Archive.org does not store all the websites in its archives either. So there is a small chance that you may not be able to view the older version of a website.