How to Find Old Sites That Don’t Exist

The Internet has changed dramatically over the years. For some people, it can be hard to imagine what old websites look like. Besides, we can’t find websites that no longer exist! Whether you’re simply curious or want to revisit an old site, today’s wikiHow teaches you how to use a variety of tools to surf the web like the old days.

Table of Contents

Using Wayback Machine

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Go to https://web.archive.org/ using a web browser. The Wayback Machine is a popular tool for archiving old web pages that anyone can search through. Visit the above URL to get started.

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Enter a keyword in the Machine’s search bar. The search bar is centered at the top of the page. You can enter a specific URL or a few keywords related to the page you are looking for.

Wayback Machine does not fully support keyword searches like Google or Bing does. In other words, you should only enter specific web pages when searching with Wayback Machine’s tool. ^{[1] X Research Source}
For a broader search than the Wayback Machine, try typing site:https://web.archive.org/ into Google.

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Select website. Depending on what you’re searching for, Wayback Machine will bring up different results. Please select a site to continue.

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Select the year on the bar chart. A bar chart will appear at the top of the screen showing the history of the site. You can explore different dates by hovering your mouse pointer along the chart, then clicking on a specific date to see what the site looked like at that time.

Find old sites with Google

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Conduct a search as usual on Google. To begin your journey back into the past of the Internet, search for something on Google as you normally would.

If you want to find a specific web page or website article, you should use the site: keyword along with the URL for the most relevant results. (e.g. site:wikihow.com). ^{[2] X Research Source}

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Click Tops (Tools). This option is at the top of the results page, just below the right of the search bar.

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Click Any time . After you click Tops , Google will provide two options along the left side of the screen: Any time and All results. Click Any time to view the history of the Internet.

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Click Custom range . Google offers a variety of filters for the time frame of the content you search for. If you want to see recent times, the preset options will be quite effective. But if you really want to dig into the past, choose Custom range to see further time.

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Adjust the date range to search. The custom date range can be as wide or narrow as you want. Add dates in the From and To fields to see what Google can offer.

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Click Go . After selecting a date range, click the Go button to conduct the search.

Note: some long-released websites may automatically redirect to the current version. However, a host of other sites including forums and message boards will display past looks.
Sometimes Google even caches a “Cached” or “Saved” version of a website, even though the site may not be too old. Click the three-dotted button next to the search results and select “Cached” (if available) to see a backup version of that site. This option can be useful if you are reviewing content that has been edited or deleted recently.
However, you need to remember that Google results are web pages that are still alive, but due to their age, have been buried deep in the search results.

Find old web pages with Bing

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Conduct a Bing search as usual. It’s not as popular as Google, but it’s possible that Bing will find its own results.

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Click Date . This option is located along the top of the page, similar to the position of the “Tops” icon on Google. A menu will drop down.

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Create a custom range (Custom range). The drop-down menu will include several different filters for search. To find really far results, create a custom date range under Custom range.

Steps

Using Wayback Machine

Find old sites with Google

Find old web pages with Bing

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