Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster Team announced via Twitter that they have removed cache links from Bing search results this week.
While the technology has been made antiquated over time due to modern web page developers adopting newer technologies to better optimized web pages, cache links in Bing Search were a useful way for SEO managers and journalists to retrieve historical data from sites after changes.
The move to sunset cache links from Bing search follows an announcement made from the other big North American player in search, Google. Earlier this year, Google announced it was dropping its similar cached technology from its Google web search tools. Like Microsoft, Google made its reveal via Twitter and referenced similar reasons for dropping the tool such as, “…it was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”
For Google’s part, Danny Sullivan, who is part of the Google Search Liaison team, is hoping it can add the cached linked history to the company’s Wayback Machine that serves as the Internet’s Archive. For now, Microsoft doesn’t appear as committed to preserving its cache links in Bing search.
Microsoft does point out that site owners and webmasters can still leverage Bing-crawled content through the company’s Bing Webmaster Tools ULR inspection tool.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s supplement solution for preserving a facet of internet history is hidden behind a licensed paywall which may force journalists, SEO specialists and hobbyists to rely on Google’s free alternative.
