Have you ever gone to read a web page, and received some kind of error message, telling you that the page has been removed, or that's it's temporarily not available?

Frustrating isn't it?

What if...you knew about a secret Google magic trick, that allowed you to see the missing web page, even if the website owner had completely removed the page from their website...wouldn't that be very cool, not too mention really handy?

Before I tell you 'exactly' how to do this, let's look at why web pages suddenly go missing or develop errors.

1. The most common reason is human error. Chances are, the website owner or someone they have updating the pages for them, probably made a few changes here and there, and saved the file incorrectly. All it takes is one miss-typed letter in the file name, and you won't be able to view it.

2. Often a particular web page may be removed deliberately by the website owner. This might happen if the information on the page was time sensitive, or they might decide to pull the plug on a controversial article.

3. On other occasions a page may be moved to a different area of the website.

4. This is a popular one. Sometimes websites receive unexpected traffic surges, and their servers struggle to operate normally under the additional strain. When this happens, you may end up getting an error message if you try to access the website during this traffic spike. The page may be there, but you just can't view it, because the server running the website, just hasn't got enough power left to show it to you.

Fact is; there are many more reasons why web pages suddenly become unavailable. You will sometimes find that if you go back to view a web page a few hours later, that everything is back to normal.

However, I'm not here to tell you to come back later. I want to show you a quick way to access web pages when they are not available in the normal way. Using a very simple tool on the Google search engine.

Click over to Google.com, and type in a random search; anything you can think of.

In Google's search results you will see the normal blue links and a description, which would normally take you to the web page being described.

If you click on that main blue link, you will be taken to the most up to date version of the web page. Now, if that page has recently been removed, or moved somewhere else, you will more than likely just get an error message.

When this happens to you, I bet you would normally just click your 'back button' and try the next listing in the search results, and I right?

Try Thi

Go back to Google's search results and look to the right of the green web page address, underneath the page description. You will see a blue link titled 'Cached'.

When Google updates their search results, they store the latest version of the web page in their 'Cached' database. Every time a new update is done, Google overwrites the older version of the Cached web page with the latest one.

When you click on the 'Cached' link next to a search result, it's like viewing a 'recording' of the original page. Sometimes these Cached pages will only be a day or two old, other times you might see one that has been stored for over a month or even longer.

When you view a page in Google's Cached database, there is an information bar at the top of the page, where amongst other things, Google tells you the date that the page was retrieved and stored in their database.

Next time you use Google to find information, and come across a web page error stopping you from viewing the page, hit your back button, and click on the Cached version of the search result. I'm sure you'll find it a very handy little trick to know.

Here's Another Trick

You might be thinking that using Google's Cached database, is only really handy when you are using Google to search for something. That's not the case.

Sometimes you might try and access a web page from your favorites menu, or maybe via a link on a website, or in an e-mail. If you get one of those blank error messages when you visit the page, try this:

1. Copy the web page address and then go to www.Google.com.

2. Paste the whole address into Google's search form and hit enter.

3. Goggle will normally return a listing for the page if it has it stored in its database. Look down the page and you will see a link to Google's Cache of the page you performed a search for. Click on the Cache link, and you can view the stored page, just as you can if you use Google for normal searches.

I hope you found this useful, happy searching!