Google Search is about to get a fantastic improvement through a new partnership between Google and The Internet Archive, a non-profit research library that preserves large portions of the Internet for future accessibility.
The new partnership announced via an Internet Archive Blog explains that Google Search will now list archived versions of web pages with a simple link to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. A user can access this feature by performing a normal Google Search, navigating to a link and the three dots located next to the link, and selecting the "More About This Page" option. After selecting this option, a user will be presented with a Wayback Machine link that showcases previous versions of a webpage.
Popular Now: Shuhei Yoshida and Adam Boyes recreate PlayStation's famous disc-sharing meme, this time with no physical gameThe new feature will be available starting today, and it will, at its most fundamental, add historical context to webpages, enabling more thorough research to be conducted on topics and, ultimately, Google Search results to be more valuable. The Internet Archive celebrated the new integration, writing the new partnership "underscores the importance of web archiving."
Unfortunately, not every single Google Search result will have this new historical context feature as The Internet Archive explains in its blog post that "archived webpages will not be available in instances where the rights holder has opted out of having their site archived or if the webpage violates content policies."
"We know that many people, including those in the research community, value being able to see previous versions of webpages when available. That's why we've added links to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to our 'About this page' feature, to give people quick context and make this helpful information easily accessible through Search," said Google in a statement to 9to5Google
