Is your bookmark leading to an empty webpage? Did that link you found on a forum post dated 5 years ago no longer work? Perhaps you need some information from a site and it’s currently down for maintenance?
Fortunately, Google has you covered. The cache: operator shows you the given web page as Google saw it before. Using it is easy: type in cache: and then the URL you need to see. Make sure there is no space between cache: and the address.
As an example, see below:
cache:reddit.com
![](https://www.learngoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image-12.png)
After you hit the search button, you’ll get something similar to this:
![](https://www.learngoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image-11-1024x508.png)
On some occasions, Google won’t be able to find a cached page, and you’ll see an image similar to the below:
![](https://www.learngoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image-13-1024x463.png)
In these cases, it’s time to pop over to archive.org and use the Wayback Machine: put the URL you want into the Wayback Machine prompt:
![](https://www.learngoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image-14-1024x373.png)
You’ll see options to select a year and a specific date: Click the blue circled dates to see the web page as it was on that date.
![](https://www.learngoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image-15.png)
The Wayback Machine is useful for seeing historical snapshots of web pages as well, and seeing how web pages change through time.