I didn't really understand how many people are viewing pages via Google Cache until now.

Quite a bit.

My big site, Interment.net, usually serves up an average of 100,000 page views per day. And right now, about 232 pages are being viewed via Google Cache.

How do I know this? I have a piece of javascript on each page for website stats. The cached copies of my pages also have them. So when I check my stats, I can see which page views from coming from Google Cache.

What is "Google Cache"? It's a copy of your webpage stored on Google's server. You can access it by running a search on Google, and then finding a link called, "Cached" next to each result...


When you click on the link "Cached", you end up seeing your webpage, as it looked when Google copied it and stored it on its servers. It also displays a frame at the top telling you that you're looking at a cached page, and not the live page.

The biggest reason why some people prefer to look at Google's cached copy instead of the live version, is because Google highlights the search term on its cached page.

The downfall to Google Cache is that the website publisher cannot update the pages in the cache. Google updates this automatically, with some pages being updated every few days, and others being updated every few months. If you posted a really nasty article about someone on your blog, and you wanted to remove it to save face, it'll still be there on Google Cache.

The only way around this is to delete your webpage altogether, so that anyone trying to access it directly, gets a 404 error. Once you've deleted the page (or saved it under a new filename), you can use Google's Webpage Removal Request Tool.

Google's cached copy of your webpage still works like your live webpage. If you click on a link on the cached version, it will break out of the cache and go directly to a live webpage. Any ads on the cached copy will still display. Whether or not they still make money for you depends on that advertiser's terms of service.

So what about AdSense? If you have AdSense running on your pages, and someone clicks on it while viewing your page through Google Cache, do you still earn money on it?

Here's better question, what if you click on an AdSense ad on your own cached page? Will Google still know that it's you clicking on it, even if the page is technically hosted on "google.com" domain?

I believe the answer to both questions is "yes". Google pays out for clicks on its AdSense ads no matter which domain the AdSense unit is hosted on, as long as it has your tracking ID on it.

As far as monitoring AdSense click fraud on Google Cache, sure they can do it. They can do it because of the AdSense cookie stored on your computer. As long as the click keeps coming from your computer, or even from within the same ISP, they can figure this stuff out.  

Labels: Google AdSense, Google Cache