Can you see how a website looked in the past?

Can you see how a website used to look? Yes, you can! With a free resource called The Internet Archive, you can see how any website looked at various points in time.

Why would you need to pull up an old version of a web page? Sometimes it’s more out of necessity than nostalgia! Consider some examples:

• Your client has gone to court over an issue and needs to know exactly how a website looked on a certain day.
• Your client needs to know which version of their Terms & Conditions was live on a certain day in history.
• You redesigned a website and want to showcase the before & after.
• You have revised your client’s web page a few times, and now they want to see content that used to be there a few months ago.
• You need to see content that is older than the oldest “post revision.”
• You need to find content for an older page that you deleted.

Clearly, there are several reasons why it might be helpful to pull up an older version of a website.

Thankfully, The Internet Archive has over 500 billion web pages saved throughout various points in time.

Simply visit Archive.org/web to browse what’s called the Wayback Machine. Enter your URL and choose one of the available snapshots.

Are there any limitations of The Internet Archive? You might not always find an image you need, but the text will always be there! Plus, every single revision won’t be available, but you’ll generally find several different snapshot points to choose from.