How to Check Website Cache in 2025?

Great question — the old cache:domain.com trick still works sometimes, but it's unreliable; many sites disable or don’t expose their cache that way now. In 2025, there are better or more consistent ways to check a site’s cached version (from Google, Bing, or other sources). Here are updated methods, tools, tips, and caveats.

Methods to Check Website Cache Today

1. Google “Cached” via Search Results

• Go to Google, search for the page or domain.

• In the search results listing, click the three-dot menu or the down‐arrow next to the URL. If available, there will be a “Cached” link.

• Or type in search bar: cache:example.com/page.html — but as you said, this doesn’t always show.

2. Google Search Console “URL Inspection” Tool

• If you own the site (or have access), use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.

• It will show “View Crawled Page”, and sometimes a “Cached Page” preview or snapshot.

• This is one of the most reliable ways for your own site.

3. Bing Cache

• Bing still supports cache: queries more reliably in many cases.

• Or search the site in Bing, click down-arrow next to URL to see “Cached page”.

4. Web Archive / Archive.org

• Use archive.org or Wayback Machine to see historical snapshots.

• Good for seeing older versions or when Google’s cache is unavailable.

5. Third-Party Tools / Services

• Websites or SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Siteliner, Wayback Browser extensions often provide cache snapshots.

• Tools like “CachedView” (cachedview.com) aggregate multiple caches (Google, Bing, Archive) in one interface.

6. Using curl or Developer Tools (via headers)

• Sometimes servers send X-Cache or X-Google-Cache headers when serving a cached HTML version. You can inspect this in DevTools → Network tab, or via:

  curl -I https://www.example.com/page.html

  Look for headers like:

  X-Cache: HIT from Google X-Cache: MISS X-Google-Cache: ...

7. Using Google’s “text-only” cache archive

• Append &output=html_text to a Google cached URL, e.g.:

  https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:example.com/page.html&output=html_text

  This sometimes fetches a text-only version.

Tips & Caveats

• Many websites disable Google’s “cache” view via meta tags like to prevent their pages from being cached publicly.

• If site uses dynamic content / JS rendering, the cached version might not display everything (some content may be missing).

• Some SEO tools cache snapshots of pages, but those snapshots may be stale (days/weeks old).

• Always check the timestamp of the cached version (usually Google shows “Cached — date”).