How and Where to Browse Old Versions of Websites

Searching for old records on the web or want to browse old versions of websites? Well, that’s very much possible. According to the IACP reports, almost 580 new websites are formed across the world in one minute. But not many last for years. To be precise, the average life of a webpage is about 40 to 44 days.

But still, there are some valuable tools and websites that allow you to browse and retrieve the older content you can’t access via URL or search engines. Have a look:

With its appealing, the Wayback Machine has been a saviour for thousands of users from the past twenty years. It is a treasure of old content. In simple words, it is a library that contains 450 billion web pages, and the service is free!

To access and use the old versions of the website via the Wayback Machine just go to the site and paste the site’s url that you want to retrieve or browse in the old version. After entering the URL, hit enter and below you will see a calendar. By clicking on the dates you can view the older version of the selected website.

Another handy option when it comes to browsing old versions of websites. The Google cache option contains the record of all crawled and indexed web pages that you can access easily.

Using Google Cache is also effortless. Type the URL in a Google search as usual, and then you will see a small downward error on the right side of your entered URL in the search results. Then Google will provide you with the cached copy of that webpage.

Another way to use this Google feature is that:

Type ‘cache’ in the search/address bar and then enter your desired website URL that you are searching for.

For instance: in the address bar: “cache:www.websitename.com”.

Next, we have an extension that you can install on your Chrome browser to view old webpages. After installing the extension, right-click on the link that you want to view and then you will find two options to view old webpages. The extension enables you to view the older versions via the Wayback Machine, or Google Cache.

WebCite is another useful way to access old webpages and older versions of websites. The archive site is not new, and it was introduced in 2005. The webpages that are archived are listed in the references section or sometimes in the articles. This is an excellent way to research the topic or if you are looking for the actual source of any read. By accessing WebCite, you cannot search for particulars keywords, but you can check the particular URL.

If somehow Google doesn’t have the web page you are looking for, other search engines might have that page. So, no harm in trying other search engines for cached versions of websites like Bing, Yahoo or Ask Cache.