The Internet Wayback Machine

Posted on August 20, 2004 12:59 AM by Joel Comm

Remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle show? "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"

Among the other characters that were featured on this classic cartoon were a pair named Sherman and Mr. Peabody, in a bit called Peabody's Improbable History. In this toon, Mr. Peabody (the dog) would send Sherman to a period in time to see living history. The machine he used was called the WABAC (pronounced "wayback" machine).

Fast-forward to the Internet age.

wayback_logo_sm.gifAlexa (now owned by Amazon.com) has been archiving web pages since 1996, building a huge library of web pages, the way they USED to look. Called the Internet Wayback Archive, this is a fun tool to take a step back in Internet time to see what web sites used to look like.

Here is a look at some sites from years past. Mind you, many of the images are missing and formatting is likely to be messed up, but you get the idea.

WorldVillage.com

  • 12/24/96
  • 2/23/99
  • 5/6/01

    Or how about this one...

    DealofDay.com

  • 3/3/00
  • 6/29/01

    Yahoo

  • 10/17/96

    eBay

  • 2/19/99

    Fun stuff, huh? Try putting in some web pages of your own and see what yesterday looked like.

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    Joel Comm is an Internet entrepreneur who has been online for over 20 years. In 1995, Joel launched WorldVillage.com, a family-friendly portal to the web which enjoys thousands of visitors each day. Joel is the co-creator of ClassicGames.com, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 1997, and now goes by the name Yahoo! Games. Since then, Joel's company, InfoMedia, Inc., has launched dozens of web sites which offer online shopping, free stuff, website reviews and more. Joel is the author of many popular books, including the NY Times Best-Seller, The AdSense Code. He regularly makes appearances at Internet marketing conferences and seminars.

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