I've heard a lot of people asking how long information stays in Google Cache. To me, this is irrelevant (at least until someone libels my name).
In the case of websites, the browser can save a copy of images, stylesheets, javascript or the entire page. The next time the user needs that resource (such as a script or logo that appears on every page), the browser doesn’t have to download it again. Fewer downloads means a faster, happier site.
MattSayarMattSayar
closed as off topic by casperOneDec 3 '11 at 3:27
Questions on Stack Overflow are expected to relate to programming within the scope defined by the community. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about reopening questions here. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
5 Answers
There is probably not a good answer, or at least there is probably not a good answer that you will get outside of Googleplex.
For Google to crawl and cache your page, usually someone has to link to you, or you have to request they crawl your site.
You can influence how frequently it visits your site by setting up a sitemap, but as far as I know Google doesn't make any guarantees anywhere that it will crawl your site on any particular schedule.
ZoredacheZoredache
It depends. Google visits frequent-changing pages more often than static sites. And if google doesn't know your site exists, how can it then visit (and cache) your site?
If you're site are hosted on a new and unknown webadress, you should tell google to visit you. Or you can drop a lot of links to you site all over the web.
If you have created a new article on your current cached site, google will find out in a day or two. Or maybe a lot quicker. (But you do need link pointing towards that new article.) As I said: it all depends ;)
Tip: You probably have access to a site-log, which will tell you how often googlebot browses your site!
qualbeenqualbeen
Google cache exists until google removes it due to 404 errors, 302 location redirects, or specific expire meta headers (noindex, nosnippet, noarchive) on the next crawling. It is also possible to remove links from google manually.
Well, a page is saved in Google cache for ever :-)
And I think it is saved in Google cache when it has been crawled.
matmat
The best you can probably do on your side of things is to set appropriate cache control HTTP headers and hope Google pays attention to them.
user42092
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged google-search or ask your own question.
A lot depends on your options settings and your ISP
In the Options settings of your browser, whatever it be, there is a setting where you can choose to have it download every time or not, it's related to the cache settings as most browsers will just draw it again from the cache unless the cache is empty or it's been a long time since being refreshed. You can also do a forced refresh by hitting the F5 button to refresh that page from the Internet. Now that you're looking beyond your system, many ISPs save themselves some money by having a server where they keep cached files of web pages frequently used b y their clients for a time period. It's possible that when you ask for a new download you may get that cached page. If you're having trouble with page and think it's an old copy it's often best to go into your browser options and empty the cache first - this is known as clearing the cache. Then it has no option but to get a new copy from the Internet. BTW questions like this should be over in the Q & A area, not the discussion section. Minus one for wrong location.
Share Flag
Do they always reload from the caches by default?
Often I am not too sure which way I should go, Q&A or discussion. I wonder if the administrator could move it to Q&A for me or whether I should start another one as Q&A. Can I say, by default all Internet browsers get the pages including embedded video and embedded music from the local cache (local computer) first then the ISP cache. I have supposed all Internet browsers have some mechanisms to compare what are in the caches before they go to the web servers in order to minimize traffic. When we hit 'F5', do they reload from the ISP cache or the web server where the pages reside?
Share Flag
The default settings is to reload from cache, most browsers will
reload from the Internet after about 12 hours, but that behaviour can be changed in the settings. F5 is a command to ignore the cache and reload from outside, but how far outside it goes will depend on if the page is cached by the ISP of not, as they do NOT cache all the pages, just the most commonly used by their clients in the last few days or so. If you want more people answering you have to ask the question over in Q&A. This is more the discussions on the blogs, articles, or general stuff is at the Water Cooler - all requests for information should be in the Q&A.