Have
you ever wondered how search engines like Yahoo or Google looked like when they
were first created? Since its boom during the mid 90’s, the web has been
growing rapidly with millions of websites being added each year. Currently, the
world wide web (www) contains at least 4.21 billion pages. Of course, these
websites undergo changes to be updated according to people’s preferences and
the suitable page layout. Furthermore, some of these websites are shut down if
they are no longer useful or needed. Because of this, these sites can no longer
be seen and viewed by the people who were using it before.
In
our research, we found a technology that can retrieve a site that has been
terminated or shut down by its creator. This is called Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Through this technology, a site
that has been shut down can be viewed and can be seen once more. In addition,
with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we can see how websites develop
through the years, and how web pages have changed over time. Moreover, the past
versions of popular sites that the web has currently can be viewed and
revisited.
To search
for a website that has been shut down, one can go to http://archive.org/web/web.php, type the url you want to search for in
the Wayback Machine address bar and then click Take Me Back. If the site you
are searching for has been archived, you will then be able to see the webpage
of the site in different times of all the years of its existence. Although most
of the sites that the web has and had before are included in the archived
documents of this technology, there is still a limitation in using this
machine. Password-protected sites and those other sites that owners refuse to
be archived were probably excluded from the site. Nevertheless, if looking for
long lost website, the machine is still the finest site that can be used.
This
new technology is very beneficial for this generation. With this, details from
the past that needs to be revisited can be seen and reviewed by the people. It
can be very helpful for those conducting research especially if it deals with
the past of certain websites . Because of the capabilities of this technology,
web developers, programmers and other people can use the past sites as a basis
in doing the design and functions of the sites that they will be creating.
Lastly, development, improvements and innovations can be realized by the
current generation.