Why (and how) to Stop Google from Caching Your Pages

by Bradley on January 23, 2010

Did you know…

  • People can see pages on your site that were up months ago without you knowing?
  • When you delete a page from your site, it can still be seen for months?
  • People can look through your site without showing up in your analytics?
stop caching

Learn to stop showing your website's cache.

This is all possible through the magic of Google’s caching feature.  And although website caching on Google has some benefits, it may not be a good fit for your site.  Let me tell you why (and how) I decided to stop having a cached version of my site on Google.

I’ve been watching my traffic a lot more closely lately, especially 404 errors.  I’ve noticed a lot of very funky stuff going on, especially with people (or bots) coming from cached versions of my site.  When I get a peek at some of the search terms that these people used to get to my site, it is interesting what kinds of things you learn.

If you aren’t sure what Website Caching is (in terms of search engines), check out this explanation from Google’s site:

Google automatically takes a “snapshot” of each page it crawls and archives it. This “cached” version allows a webpage to be retrieved for your end users if the original page is ever unavailable (due to temporary failure of the page’s web server). The cached page appears to users exactly as it looked when Google last crawled it, and we display a message at the top of the page to indicate that it’s a cached version. Users can access the cached version by choosing the “Cached” link on the search results page.  (As seen here)

So the only benefit of caching as far as I can tell is that a copy of your site is available in case your server goes down.  My server doesn’t go down much, so that isn’t a big bonus.  But the downsides seem to outweigh the good.

Here a little video about Caching…

I don’t want people to be able to see cached versions of my site. The cached versions could be pages or posts you deleted, are out of date, or you removed from your site for one reason or another.  I figure: If I took the pages down already, I don’t want Google showing them to people for months (years?) to come.

I would also like to know when people are looking at my site. Usually Google Analytics will give me this data, but if people are looking at cached versions of my site, then they never get counted.  They can browse my whole site (and your whole site) without you knowing about it.

So I did some searching on how to stop Google (and the other search engines) from showing a cached version of your page.  All you have to do is add:

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE” />

to your header.  Supposedly it’s as easy as that.

So, I just added it today and of course Google has to come back through and re-index each of these pages to see the change, but I’m excited to see how this works.

Update 3/24/2011:

Thanks to Joseph for pointing out that there is a plugin for this.  You can download it here.  I haven’t tested this out, so use at your own risk.

Your Turn:

Do you have any experience with web caching you’d like to share?  Do you have questions about adding the meta to your site?  Are you aware of something that might happen without a cached version I didn’t think about?  Add it to the comments below…

PS:  If you liked what you saw about Thesis Theme, check out my Thesis Theme discount.

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  • http://www.houndsinthekitchen.com/ Rachel (Hounds in the Kitchen)

    Makes sense to me. I just added the tag to my wordpress site.

  • http://www.virvo.com/ Web Development

    I hate how we have to add tags to our pages – because of third party sites – this sort of stuff should be kept inside robots.txt or similar to prevent bandwidth waste.

    • rawwebdesign

      I agree completely. But that's the
      world we live in.

  • angeliqueandfriends

    How do you do this for WordPress?

    • rawwebdesign

      With thesis you just add it to your
      header space, without thesis you
      have to edit your header.php file
      to include it.

      • angeliqueandfriends

        I don't see a way to add it to my header space without editing the .php file. I have Thesis, but the only option I have under header is to change the title tag and add no-index to pages. My custom file editor is for CSS.

        • rawwebdesign

          Did you watch the video? It shows
          how to in there. It's under Thesis
          Options near the bottom on the left
          hand side…

          • angeliqueandfriends

            That's what I get for reading this on my phone! I didn't realize it was a video. Duh. I'll go watch it!

          • rawwebdesign

            how does it look on your phone
            anyways? (the site i mean…)

          • angeliqueandfriends

            Okay, watched the video and added the code!

            I'm trying to look at your site on my phone again (I have a Blackberry through Verizon) but I can't connect with it right now. It says “the server may be busy,” but since your website is working perfectly the problem is THEIR server. They are just too embarrassed to admit it. I'll post again when I can see it.

          • rawwebdesign

            Awesome. Glad it worked for ya.
            RSS this site and I promise there
            will be lots of good stuff coming.

            -brad

          • angeliqueandfriends

            Don't see an RSS button anywhere (except to subscribe to blog comments.)

          • rawwebdesign

            Oh well I'm going to have to add
            that for sure. Thanks!

            -brad

  • Anonymous

    nice article, i’m adding it as well. make sure to close to meta tag like this /> instead of >

    • rawwebdesign

      Good point! Forgot about that…

      Thanks.

  • http://www.searchenginepro.com.au/SEO/SydneySEO.html SEO Sydney

    I have a question for you:
    why go certain pages are indexed in google but have no cache? also why they do not apear in search results?
    what can be done about it so it will have cache?
    by the way <META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE” />
    was not in any pages. see examples.
    site:www.searchenginepro.com.au/SEM
    look at pages 60-100 mostly nocahce.

    • rawwebdesign

      That's a good question. I have no
      idea why they wouldn't cache your
      site. If you consider it a
      problem, get more links. Getting
      more inbound links cures all SEO
      ails IMHO.

      brad

  • http://www.jonathanboettcher.com Jonathan Boettcher

    Sweet – excellent tip. I’ve been hacking back on what the Goog has access to anyways (old landing pages etc that I don’t want competitors seeing) so this fits perfectly with that.

  • ihategooglecache

    I hate google cache. I just recently found out that it does cache on myspace profiles. It shows all of the stuff you wanted to hide and makes it public. is there anyway i can stop that from happening?

    • admin

      I don’t know of any way to stop caching of Myspace. That’s one of many reasons why nobody should use myspace. Haha.

      But seriously, don’t put anything secret on Myspace. Reserve that for diaries and pillow talk.

  • ihategooglecache

    that doesn’t give me much hope. Who knows how long it’s been caching on my myspace and what I’ve posted. LOL.. too late now to worry. Thanks for the advice.

  • pedro

    hi, when i type in my user name in google it shows up sites that i’v visited or that im a member on, this info is private to me and i dont want people seeing what sites im on when they type in my user name, can i get this info removed or will it only stay displayed on google for a set time

  • Cheryl

    I’ve got cached pages showing up from a website we took down a year ago. How do I get rid of those since there’s no header to add the tag to?

    • admin

      That’s a very good question. You may be able to submit a takedown request from Google, but I’m not sure. If you find out, let me know please.

  • http://bbqshirt.org Dan Random

    In Thesis 1.7, this feature is built-in under Thesis Site Options/Robots Meta Tags/No Archive Tag, it looks like this http://bbqshirt.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/no-archive.jpg

    Dan

  • http://www.chmans.com Sheet Metal Fabrication

    How I can get rid of cached pages showing on my website pages. Why Google show this message at the top of the site some time. Is it due to failure of searching of the page or something else? I love the Google search and no doubt it is wonderful and quick but tell me the solutions. Please!

  • jt26

    I am not using Thesis, so I did not have the option of going into my header space. Instead, I went to my WordPress admin panel, then clicked on “Editor” under the Appearance menu. I then added the code at the very bottom of the following location:

    <meta name="disable_cufon" content="” />
    <meta name="slider_speed" content="” />
    <meta name="slider_disable" content="” />

    /* <![CDATA[ */
    jQuery.preloadImages("/home_feature.jpg","/stage.jpg","/header.jpg","/images/slider_inactive.png","/images/buttons.gif","/buttons.gif","/images/slider_active.png","/drop.png","/dropR.png","/drop_sub.png");
    /* ]]> */


    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/styles/ie6/ie6.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />
    <script src="/DD_belatedPNG_0.0.8a-min.js”>

    DD_belatedPNG.fix(‘#default_logo, .slider_frame’);

    Am I doing this right? Is there any way to quickly verify that this is working?

  • http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A6AcFkFNrQ8J:www.bradleyspencer.com/2010/how-to-stop-google-from-caching-your-pages/+stop+google+caching+my+wordpress+site&cd=1&hl=en&c Your Cache is here
  • Sara

    the info was great but i m still unable to absorb the concept. What If i add in header of my site, will Google come daily to crawl it? or every time i update the website? is it beneficial for SEO or SERP?

  • isle of wight b&b

    I’ve been hacking back on what the Goog has access to anyways (old landing pages etc that I don’t want competitors seeing) so this fits perfectly with that.

  • Braintree Web Developer

    The only time I use googles cache is when I cannot find the page I am looking for – either through server down or otherwise.

  • http://scalp.plaxmol.com Claude Brindamour

    Bonjour Bradley.

    Got your page through Nadia Seraiocco. I’m not sure where to place the meta (I know 2 or 3 things of WP by instinct, but sometimes I have a problem with the basics).

    But I downloaded the plugin and installed it. My problem is that I need to get rid of the Cache NOW. I there a way other than waiting for Google to crawl again through my website?

    Thank you.

    • Bradley

      Claude,

      I don’t think there is a way to purge Google’s cache instantly. It takes a few weeks (at minimum).

      If you are having trouble putting the meta in the right place, just shoot me an email.

      Brad

  • http://sellingonlinemadesimple.com.au Web Desing Perth

    Interesting post.
    What I would like to know is if it make any difference to a sites SEO ranking.
    I have read a few different post on various blogs, but found nothing conclusive. Some people say it will have a negative impact on site, others say it will have no effect.
    So far I have seen no one say it has a positive effect.
    Does anyone have any experience with this?
    Mark

    • Bradley

      I don’t use it to change my rankings… I use it so that people can’t view older versions of my content. Good question though… does anyone know what the SEO effect of having no cache is?

  • http://www.openwebservices.co.uk Dean Ryan

    This is very helpful information. I am going to download the plugin to see what it does. If i get round to fully exploring it i will leave a comment/update.

    Dean :-)

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