Not Seeing 'Text-Only' Cache in Internet Explorer

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Not Seeing 'Text-Only' Cache in Internet Explorer

gouri

5:48 pm on May 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I have noticed that when looking at the cache version of a webpage in Internet Explorer there is no text-only version.

I am trying to figure out if this might mean something. Why has it stopped appearing in Explorer?

tedster

2:55 am on May 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

That's an odd one, isn't it? I see the same thing, and only in IE. The other browsers still get a text-only link.

The odd thing to me is that IE is the most used browser, so it seems like a strange place to do some testing, and yet, that's apparently what's going on.

AnkitMaheshwari

3:39 am on May 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

I am using IE7 and it is showing Text Version link

tedster

4:37 am on May 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

I just used IE7 to go down a list of 10 search results, 8 with a cached link. Of those 8, only one had a text-only link - but there was one.

Now the fun. In Opera and in Firefox, all 8 cache links did show a text-only option. Seems pretty mysterious to me, I can't imagine what's going on here.

AnkitMaheshwari

4:46 am on May 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

Was checking a few more results and found the following statements:

This is Google's cache of http://www.example.com/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 2 May 2009 19:57:18 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more
Text-only version
These search terms are highlighted: keyword1 These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: keyword2

I have not seen "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page:" before.

tedster

5:24 am on May 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

Here's a thread from 2003 that mentions it [webmasterworld.com].

Maybe this absence of a text-only link has been around a long time, too, but just not noticed. I wouldn't even have thought to investigate if gouri hadn't seen it and wondered.

gouri

1:01 pm on May 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

Maybe this absence of a text-only link has been around a long time, too, but just not noticed. I wouldn't even have thought to investigate if gouri hadn't seen it and wondered.

I looked again and I see some sites with a text-only link and some that do not have it. I think before all cached versions had a text-only link. It seems to be some sort of testing.