Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hey Google, I want my cache links back

jacquesmattheij.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 177 posts

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#11

Post by icebraining »

wladimir wrote: post #5

I don't agree this is necessarily bad. Arguably, "view cache" is a feature for power-users that know what they're doing. Moving the cache link into that pop-up did simplify the user interface in the most common case, in which the user just wants to view the real link. It no longer has to be rendered for every result. IMO it just takes some getting used to that the cache link has been moved. Or are you viewing pages f…

Personally, I'm not using the mouse, so any mouse moves are problematic. But I won't demand Google to change just for me, of course.

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#12

Post by mike-cardwell »

wgx wrote: post #9

The OP raises a wider point: For the longest time google made good on their promise to keep their search page simple and easy to use. Now, bit by bit the search page is getting more filled up with cruft that you don't need and stuff that you do need gets removed. I am getting a hunch (just a vague feeling) that we might be approaching a time where a new, simpler search experience would pick up a lot of users - maybe…

If you want Googles search results, but without all the interface spaff, use Scroogle: https://ssl.scroogle.org/

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#14

Post by udp »

wgx wrote: post #9

The OP raises a wider point: For the longest time google made good on their promise to keep their search page simple and easy to use. Now, bit by bit the search page is getting more filled up with cruft that you don't need and stuff that you do need gets removed. I am getting a hunch (just a vague feeling) that we might be approaching a time where a new, simpler search experience would pick up a lot of users - maybe…

Let's not forget DuckDuckGo. I finally switched around when Google Instant came out, and never feel I'm missing anything.

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#16

Post by barrkel »

wladimir wrote: post #10
joakin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the users, for example my non-techie partner always clicks on the cache link just because it highlights the words that she searched for on the page. For some people it may be an important move

Hmm yes I can see it used for that. However, that will only work for simple passive pages. "view cache" is inherently incompatible with pages that render from javascript (or that make extra requests to get the content). These get broken, and as a growing amount of sites is affected this might be another one of the reasons for obscuring the option.

Pages that render from javascript or make extra requests to get the content were broken already. They fail REST and thus they're not easily cacheable. We shouldn't encourage them outside of those specific web apps for which linking is not a relevant operation.

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#18

Post by blauwbilgorgel »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #12
wgx wrote: post #9

The OP raises a wider point: For the longest time google made good on their promise to keep their search page simple and easy to use. Now, bit by bit the search page is getting more filled up with cruft that you don't need and stuff that you do need gets removed. I am getting a hunch (just a vague feeling) that we might be approaching a time where a new, simpler search experience would pick up a lot of users - maybe…

If you want Googles search results, but without all the interface spaff, use Scroogle: https://ssl.scroogle.org/

Google accessibility search doesn't violate Google's TOS, yet gives the cleanest possible interface:

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=000183394137052953072%3Azc1orsc...

But scrolling seems to be somewhat broken.

Removing the "In Cache" link probably makes the user interface less cluttered. I used it a lot, and had to go look for it yesterday. From the official support thread:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=...

But I don't have the user data that Google has. If less than 1% of the users account for the "in cache"-usage, the solution to require an extra click to get to it, is more sane, viewed in that light.

Shouldn't be too hard to make a browser plug-in / Greasemonkey script, so to add a link to:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.yc...

directly under search results.

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#19

Post by ssp »

wgx wrote: post #9

The OP raises a wider point: For the longest time google made good on their promise to keep their search page simple and easy to use. Now, bit by bit the search page is getting more filled up with cruft that you don't need and stuff that you do need gets removed. I am getting a hunch (just a vague feeling) that we might be approaching a time where a new, simpler search experience would pick up a lot of users - maybe…

I wonder whether they split test these types of things?

They probably do, but Google is unlikely to be immune to corporate pathologies, where for example it is politically impossible for some team to leave well enough alone. I suspect that could easily end up trumping split test results.

Re: Hey Google, I want my cache links back

#20

Post by cooperadymas »

ars wrote: post #4

This does not bode well for the employees at google. You get extra features like this (instant preview) when you have too much manpower - you look for things for your employees to do. But if your customers don't want it, and you can't find anything else for them to do then you start reducing the workforce.

When Google released Instant Preview they claimed it increases click through rates to a website. This makes me think a good number of customers do want it.

Edit: here is the announcement: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-result...

"In our testing, we’ve found that people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. "

Post reply on HN