Some folks have lost some data recently, and would like to get it back. There’s some small hope — Google.com will create a cached version of the various pages it visits, and you can often find your missing web pages here!

Step 1

Go to google.com, and in the search box, type the domain name or complete URL of the site you’d like, preceded by “site:” and click the search button. Like so:

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can add a search term to narrow your results.

Step 2

Google will return a list of all the pages it has spidered from your site. Scroll until you find your little lost page, post, or document, and click the word “cached” — do NOT click the regular link. That “Cached” link will take you to a copy of the text that’s been saved to Google’s machine, and you’ll be able to save that page to your own computer and do with it as you wish.

Step 3

Repeat for every page you’re missing.

NOTE: This won’t work well for private site areas, or for sites that have opted out of the Google spidering process. Your mileage may vary!