---
title: "How to use Google’s cache to restore a web page"
description: "In the event that you need a file restored and you have no local backup, you may be able to use Google's cache as an alternative. When Google crawls your website, it takes a snapshot of your page...."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/backup-and-restore/googles-cache-to-restore-web-page/
date: 2011-08-25
modified: 2023-05-11
author: "Carrie Smaha"
categories: ["Backups and Restorations"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# How to use Google’s cache to restore a web page

In the event that you need a file restored and you have no local backup, you may be able to use Google’s cache as an alternative.

When Google crawls your website, it takes a snapshot of your page. That snapshot shows what your site looked like when Google crawled it, and is available to see using the “Cached” link in Google’s search results. Restoring a page using Google’s cache, in short, is using the html Google saved when crawling your site to rebuild the file you need restored.

**Please note**:

The steps outlined below are not guaranteed to work. This method is only recommended to be used as a last resort. Google’s cache will not work on php or other pages using server side scripting as Google cannot see your php code, only the html that is generated.

1.  Search Google for **site:example.com**. Be sure to replace example.com with your domain name and do not insert any spaces between **site:** and **example.com.**
2.  You will see a listing of all pages that Google has crawled that are in example.com. Click the**Cached** link next to the page you need to restore.
3.  At the top of the page, Google will display a message similar to:
4.  Test the new file in your browser. In this example, you would want to test example.com/index_test.html. If this version of your page in Google’s cache will work for you, move the original file out of the way and instead put the test file in place. In this example, you would rename index.html to anything else, like index.html.bak, and then rename the test file index_test.html to index.html.