The Web changes constantly, and sometimes that page that had just the information you needed yesterday (or last month or two years ago) is not available today. At other times you may want to see how a page's content or design has changed. There are several sources for finding Web pages as they used to exist.
The Windows Search has the capability to search your hard drive or a network drive and display files based on created or modified date. At the top right of Windows Explorer where you'll find a Search bar, type datecreated: or datemodified: and a calendar will pop up allowing you to select a date or date range. How to find the last changed files? The freeware Last Changed Files finds the 100 recent changed files on your hard disk or within multiple subdirectories. Once you start Last Changed Files, the software automatically scans your hard drive and shows you the top 100 new created or last changed files on your hard disk.
While Google's cache is probably the best known, the others are important alternatives that may have pages not available at Google or the Wayback Machine plus they may have an archived page from a different date. The table below notes the name of the service, the way to find the archived page, and some notes that should give some idea as to how old a page the archive may contain.
| Multiple copies of pages | ||
| Wayback Machine | Enter URL in search box to view | From late 1996 to 8-14 months ago; from the Internet Archive. Often includes cached images, CSS, and JavaScript. |
| Archive-It Collections | Full-text search or enter URL | Highly selective collections, primarily of state agencies and organizations. Some general pages included as well. Full-text searching. Use 'Search All Collections' for broadest coverage. Multiple dates. Images, PDFs, text. |
| WebCite | Enter URL in search box to view | Launched in late 2005, this site only archives Web pages cited in certain journal articles (mosty health-related). Multiple dates may be available via drop down box in upper right. No text search access. Text, images, PDFs cached. Examples: Web page, newspaper article, PDF. |
| Single 'Cached' Copy of a Page | ||
| Google Review | cache:URL or Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. Crawl date given. Text only cache as well. |
| Bing Review | Cached page link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. Crawl date given. |
| Yahoo! Review | Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. No cache date given. |
| Ask Review | Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. Crawl date given. Incomplete coverage. |
| Gigablast Review | [cached] link or[stripped] for text | From recent to a year old. Gives date of cache. Text only cache and links to Wayback Machine (older copies link) as well. |
| Exalead Review | Preview or link | From recent to a 6 months old. Gives date of cache. Incomplete coverage. |
| Alexa | Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. No cache date given. |
| Family Source | Cached link | Small database, 1 million+ 'family friendly' pages. Most pages cached in 2005. No cache date given. |
| Healia | Cached link | Estimate 2-4 months old. Small database of consumer health documents. No date given. |
| DiplomacyMonitor | Cached link | Small database of 'more than 16,000 diplomatic and trade documents issued in the past 90 days.' Date indexed given. |
| Baidu | 百度快照 link | Chinese search engine. Crawl date on results page, not in cache. |
| Baidu Japan | キャッシュlink | Japanese search engine. Crawl date on results page, not in cache. |
| Yandex (Яндекс) | Сохраненная копия link | Russian search engine, with primarily Russian pages. Estimate yesterday to several months old. No date given. |
| ZoomInfo | [Cached] link | Only in people search, associated pages have cached links. Cache date given, but no searchable or URL access. You have to know what person might be on a specific page. |
Note that none of these include all Web pages. A robots.txt file or a in the header of a file can prohibit the crawling of the page. Google and other should look for a in the header and not cache such pages. But the exclusions do not always work. Other possible ways to resurrect a dead link include checking in your local browser's cache if you visited the page recently or hope that someone else copied and posted the file on the Web.
For more details on searching the Wayback Machine, see my article 'The Wayback Machine: The Web's Archive.' ONLINE 26(2): 59-61, Mar.-Apr. 2002.
'Trickster feels really well designed. I'm pretty picky about apps that I let keep an icon in my status bar, but Trickster has earned a spot there.' - Mike Dattolo, $2-tuesday 'Where Trickster does the trick for me is with its keyboard navigation.' - Cody Fink, Macstories.net 'Incredibly useful, nicely designed.'. When you hit Lv40, sell your Lv40 gift box (containing a Snappy or Stallion Sprint) for 12 mil. Collect all the monster drops as you train, and sell them to the NPC. If you have high Sense, you can drill for quest items and sell them in your private shop–vending will become your main way of making money. How to Reset and Clear Recent Items and Frequent Places in Windows 10 Recent items is a list of the files that you have used or opened recently. These items are displayed as 'Recent files' in Quick access, and under 'Recent' in jump lists on the Start menu and taskbar.
| Services that Used to Have a Cached Copy | ||
| IncyWincy | cached link | Small database based on ODP, about 6 months old, gave date of cache. Defunct as of Fall 2007. |
| BoardReader | Cached link to view | Web forum postings only, date unreliable; cache link gone as of Fall 2006. |
| Daypop | Cached date link to view | Last two weeks, blog postings and news articles, gives date of cache. Daypop no longer available as of Fall 2006. |
| Feedster | Cached link to view | Typically caches only the first few lines from blog & news RSS feeds. Cached copy no longer available as of Fall 2006. |
| Blogging Ecosystem | c link to view | Very small: top linked and linking blogs only; no longer updated as of Fall 2006. |
| ScrubTheWeb | Cached link | Small database, from 1-7 months old. No cache date given. No cache copy in 2011. |
| SearchEdu SearchGov SearchMil | All from MaxBot | These used to have their own database and cached copies. As of 2003, SearchGov and SearchEdu just give Google results. SearchMil no longer has cached copies. |
| Google News | Formerly cache:URL to view | Cached capability removed in March 2003. |
Trickster Find Recently Used Files 2 4 2020
The Web changes constantly, and sometimes that page that had just the information you needed yesterday (or last month or two years ago) is not available today. At other times you may want to see how a page's content or design has changed. There are several sources for finding Web pages as they used to exist.
The Windows Search has the capability to search your hard drive or a network drive and display files based on created or modified date. At the top right of Windows Explorer where you'll find a Search bar, type datecreated: or datemodified: and a calendar will pop up allowing you to select a date or date range. How to find the last changed files? The freeware Last Changed Files finds the 100 recent changed files on your hard disk or within multiple subdirectories. Once you start Last Changed Files, the software automatically scans your hard drive and shows you the top 100 new created or last changed files on your hard disk.
While Google's cache is probably the best known, the others are important alternatives that may have pages not available at Google or the Wayback Machine plus they may have an archived page from a different date. The table below notes the name of the service, the way to find the archived page, and some notes that should give some idea as to how old a page the archive may contain.
| Multiple copies of pages | ||
| Wayback Machine | Enter URL in search box to view | From late 1996 to 8-14 months ago; from the Internet Archive. Often includes cached images, CSS, and JavaScript. |
| Archive-It Collections | Full-text search or enter URL | Highly selective collections, primarily of state agencies and organizations. Some general pages included as well. Full-text searching. Use 'Search All Collections' for broadest coverage. Multiple dates. Images, PDFs, text. |
| WebCite | Enter URL in search box to view | Launched in late 2005, this site only archives Web pages cited in certain journal articles (mosty health-related). Multiple dates may be available via drop down box in upper right. No text search access. Text, images, PDFs cached. Examples: Web page, newspaper article, PDF. |
| Single 'Cached' Copy of a Page | ||
| Google Review | cache:URL or Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. Crawl date given. Text only cache as well. |
| Bing Review | Cached page link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. Crawl date given. |
| Yahoo! Review | Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. No cache date given. |
| Ask Review | Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. Crawl date given. Incomplete coverage. |
| Gigablast Review | [cached] link or[stripped] for text | From recent to a year old. Gives date of cache. Text only cache and links to Wayback Machine (older copies link) as well. |
| Exalead Review | Preview or link | From recent to a 6 months old. Gives date of cache. Incomplete coverage. |
| Alexa | Cached link | Estimate from yesterday to 3 months old. No cache date given. |
| Family Source | Cached link | Small database, 1 million+ 'family friendly' pages. Most pages cached in 2005. No cache date given. |
| Healia | Cached link | Estimate 2-4 months old. Small database of consumer health documents. No date given. |
| DiplomacyMonitor | Cached link | Small database of 'more than 16,000 diplomatic and trade documents issued in the past 90 days.' Date indexed given. |
| Baidu | 百度快照 link | Chinese search engine. Crawl date on results page, not in cache. |
| Baidu Japan | キャッシュlink | Japanese search engine. Crawl date on results page, not in cache. |
| Yandex (Яндекс) | Сохраненная копия link | Russian search engine, with primarily Russian pages. Estimate yesterday to several months old. No date given. |
| ZoomInfo | [Cached] link | Only in people search, associated pages have cached links. Cache date given, but no searchable or URL access. You have to know what person might be on a specific page. |
Note that none of these include all Web pages. A robots.txt file or a in the header of a file can prohibit the crawling of the page. Google and other should look for a in the header and not cache such pages. But the exclusions do not always work. Other possible ways to resurrect a dead link include checking in your local browser's cache if you visited the page recently or hope that someone else copied and posted the file on the Web.
For more details on searching the Wayback Machine, see my article 'The Wayback Machine: The Web's Archive.' ONLINE 26(2): 59-61, Mar.-Apr. 2002.
'Trickster feels really well designed. I'm pretty picky about apps that I let keep an icon in my status bar, but Trickster has earned a spot there.' - Mike Dattolo, $2-tuesday 'Where Trickster does the trick for me is with its keyboard navigation.' - Cody Fink, Macstories.net 'Incredibly useful, nicely designed.'. When you hit Lv40, sell your Lv40 gift box (containing a Snappy or Stallion Sprint) for 12 mil. Collect all the monster drops as you train, and sell them to the NPC. If you have high Sense, you can drill for quest items and sell them in your private shop–vending will become your main way of making money. How to Reset and Clear Recent Items and Frequent Places in Windows 10 Recent items is a list of the files that you have used or opened recently. These items are displayed as 'Recent files' in Quick access, and under 'Recent' in jump lists on the Start menu and taskbar.
| Services that Used to Have a Cached Copy | ||
| IncyWincy | cached link | Small database based on ODP, about 6 months old, gave date of cache. Defunct as of Fall 2007. |
| BoardReader | Cached link to view | Web forum postings only, date unreliable; cache link gone as of Fall 2006. |
| Daypop | Cached date link to view | Last two weeks, blog postings and news articles, gives date of cache. Daypop no longer available as of Fall 2006. |
| Feedster | Cached link to view | Typically caches only the first few lines from blog & news RSS feeds. Cached copy no longer available as of Fall 2006. |
| Blogging Ecosystem | c link to view | Very small: top linked and linking blogs only; no longer updated as of Fall 2006. |
| ScrubTheWeb | Cached link | Small database, from 1-7 months old. No cache date given. No cache copy in 2011. |
| SearchEdu SearchGov SearchMil | All from MaxBot | These used to have their own database and cached copies. As of 2003, SearchGov and SearchEdu just give Google results. SearchMil no longer has cached copies. |
| Google News | Formerly cache:URL to view | Cached capability removed in March 2003. |
Trickster Find Recently Used Files 2 4 2020
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