Filed on Mar 28th 2008 in Fun
Friday Fun: Viewing the ghosts of web pages past
Do you remember a website you used to frequent, and find yourself wishing you could see part of it again? In the annals of recorded information, there have not been many things as ephemeral as web pages -- few things are as literally "here today, gone tomorrow." The Wayback Machine, part of the marvelous Internet Archive, is meant to preserve a part of this rich web history as a cultural record. Generally, you see only one or two levels on the Archive, and retrieval is painfully slow (you sometimes have better luck with the mirror site). Although there is much content that is not available -- preserving a part of every website that has ever existed is an impossibility -- a vast quantity of material can be found. Most of the web trawling is done by software, but if you think that a site is worthy of inclusion, you can submit it for approval. However, it must meet certain technical requirements to be included, as not all sites work well, or can be loaded into the archive. So, if there is a website you fondly recall that you would love to view once more as it used to look, perhaps you can take a trip through time with the Wayback Machine.
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