14 DAY TRIAL // The Wayback Machine just got a big update, a redesigned website and new software underneath. The new website should be faster and easier to navigate but it's still in beta and there may be further changes or things that don't work yet. The old version of the web archive tool is still available.
The Wayback Machine is being maintained by the Internet Archive, an organization dedicated to preserving the ever-changing web, making copies of old websites and pages for future reference.
The website enables you to browse through past versions and snapshots of many websites, though they have to have a certain level of popularity to be included automatically.
"The BETA test software and index are designed to be faster than the classic WM. The two other biggest differences you’re likely to notice are the new toolbar on archived pages, and the new look of the calendar of page captures," a FAQ answer on the new Wayback Machine interface reads.
"The new toolbar will hopefully make it easier for you to know what date you’re looking at, move through time more quickly using the sparkline of captures over time, and do new searches without having to leave the page you’re looking at," it adds.
Visually, the new website is a big leap in the right direction. The top toolbar enables users to move through all of the previous versions of a site captured by the Wayback Machine. The timeline graph indicates the periods with the most activity and also provides an easy way of seeing when the page you're visiting was created.
The calendar view provides a better way of browsing through all of the archived pages and also indicates the days when more changes were made.
The new Wayback Machine is in beta and it's not just a label, things can be very buggy at times. If you're having trouble with the beta version or just prefer the old one, you can access it from web.archive.org.
"The Wayback Machine (WM) was first launched in 2001 using proprietary software written by Alexa Internet. A few years ago, the Internet Archive wrote our own version of the Wayback and made that software open source," the FAQ summarizes the Wayback Machine's history.