Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead. Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.::Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.
To be clear, Google will still be storing copies of the pages they crawl. They just won’t be making those copies available to end users.
Absolutely. This is just locking off users access and is an example of enshittification. 0 benefit to users but benefits to Google (more click through to sponsored links, and blocking AI content crawlers probably)
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Does anyone else remember growing up being told “watch what you put on the internet! it’ll be there forever!” Now it seems more and more like things out on the internet won’t be there forever unless someone specifically wants it to. I seem to having a harder and harder time digging up parts of the internet i remember from my childhood, the old parts are slowly being erased by entropy and lack of desire to keep them there.
The internet has selective amnesia
I mean sure, searches are basically useless now and the internet is filled with ai and seo garbage, but most everything is also still out there /somewhere/, even if it may only be in like the archive of the NSA. Plus when ai gets a bit better certain people will probably be able to link everything you’ve ever said to your “advertising profile” (Google basically already does this). Plus I’ve been saying for years that soon enough there’ll be a facial recognition crawler app where you upload a photo of someone and it shows you every picture they’ve ever appeared in. Although with how good deep fakes are now this is arguably less concerning.
I’ve been wondering for a while now if we’re even getting real results or if the seo results have made crawlers (as we know it) largely redundant. I doubt google has any real incentive to move away from the model that is now in place, unless they do intend to launch a paid service (free from the above mentioned garbage) alongside the existing service should competitors like kagi present a real threat to their business.
Cached webpages are dead
Internet archive: 👀
It’s been years since I remembered cached pages was a thing.
I don’t think this is a bad thing per sé. I don’t think that everything on the internet should be saved.
