When one performed a Google search, one is bound to hit upon a few bad links. As I recall, it used to be that Google had a “cache” option that retained a small amount of info from an extinct website. At first, cached info could be accessed by a link, and later I seem to recall it became a clickable button to access the cached info for a bad link. Now, it seems that option is totally gone. Naturally, the most intriguing hits in my Google searches are bad links. 
Is there still a way to see, what Google would call, “cached” data?
It is still there. Just look for the little down arrow to the right of the link. “Cached” is one of the options in the drop-down menu.
And of course there is always the Internet Archive Wayback Machine which has more than 279 billion cached web pages dating back in some cases to the very beginnings of the Web.
I can’t believe that! I never even SAW that arrow before! I always figured that Google simply dumped this great feature for some reason. Thanks!
(Why do they love to hide this stuff? Especially nowadays when the average screen has so much more space than 10-20 years ago? I don’t get it.)
Except, of course, that when a URL is lost, and gets taken over by advertisers deploying a “no robots” instruction, the Wayback Machine honours the NEW instruction wrt the OLD content.
I have no idea why they do this. It sucks.
Your average overlooks a large subset (I suspect a majority) of today’s screens.
i might be able to offer some help …
they also discussed it in stack-exchange:
They want to deemphasize the feature, to reduce its usage. It’s probably a concession to those few sites that freaked out that Google provides a public copy of their site.
It’s not a small screen thing, since smaller screens use the mobile site by default, which doesn’t even have the arrow.
I didn’t know that, and you’re right - it sucks.
I’ll look again, but in the virtual world as in life…I am always short on cache! 