The caching and archieving of Google

Do they really cache and archieve everything?

[gerwin]

I just was wondering, does Google really have a cache of every website they crawl on the web? Do they really have thousands and thousands of servers to image all the results they index?

And now that webmasters see results coming back from before the Florida-update it suggests that Google has also a archieve for at least several months. Do they really have that much servers? There must be serveral PetaByte's data... if not more... can anyone confirm this?

[rfgdxm1]

Yes.

[kevinpate]

So far as I know, G has a cache of all pages indexed, except where someone has elected to block their ability to cache the info.

As to servers, a recent NYT article noted that last spring G had about 50,000 servers and by fall that was closer to 100,000 servers.

Excluding very new content, I can find our pages in G, including our customer forms that are provided in .doc, .pdf and/or .txt formats.

Based on the past few months, I anticipate our newest content (loaded in the last 36 hours) to show up long before mid-month, and to see it with pr assigned and backlinks showing within 24-40 days from the live date, and possibly less time.

[rfgdxm1]

>So far as I know, G has a cache of all pages indexed, except where someone has elected to block their ability to cache the info.

No. Google has all those cached too. All that NOARCHIVE does is that it means Google won't show the cache to the public.

[ThomasB]

rfgdxm1,

All that NOARCHIVE does is that it means Google won't show the cache to the public

True, just want to explain the reason:
How should Google rank sites if they don't know what's on-site. Backlinks play an important role, but onsite-SEO is still important.