Google will now link you to past websites via the Wayback Machine
Ever wonder what a particular website looked like 10, 15, or even 25 years ago? The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is a great way to see the internet in the past — and now you can access its historical archive directly through Google.
Starting today, anyone running a Google search can follow a link to the Internet Archive to see previous versions of a web page that appear in the results. The goal, according to a Google spokesperson, is to streamline access to archived details about a website to show how it evolved, preserve important information, and help researchers.
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“We know that many people, including those in the research community, appreciate being able to view previous versions of the site when they are available,” the spokesperson said.
“That’s why we’ve added links to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to the ‘About this page’ feature, to give people quick context and make it easy for people to access this useful information through Search.”
To access archived information about a specific website, click the three dots next to the search result. In the “About this result” panel, click the “More about this page” link. This will display a link to the Wayback Machine page for that website. Clicking the link will allow you to view previous versions of the page, which are snapshots of how the page appeared at different times in the past.
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The partnership between Google and the Wayback Machine is designed to emphasize the importance of web archiving and especially to make it easier how people can discover past contentLinks to archived sites will not be available if the copyright owner or holder has opted out of the process or if the page violates content policies.
“The web is aging, and with it, countless URLs now lead to digital ghosts,” Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, said in a statement.
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“Enter the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: for more than 25 years, it has preserved snapshots of the public web. This digital time capsule turns our ‘just now’ browsing into a journey through internet history. And now, a single click into Google’s search results opens a portal to a fuller, richer web — one that remembers what others have forgotten.”
