As someone who develops and invests in domain names I often find myself wondering what domains I own used to look like. Luckily the Internet Archive Wayback Machine exists.
One question that comes into my mind is if the domain names I own have ever been developed? If so, what was developed on the domain names and what kind of business, organization or individual owned or operated from the domain? Luckily there is a great website called Internet Archive Wayback Machine that allows you to navigate back through time and see snapshots of the domain name going back to it’s earliest online presence.
One domain I own is EXL.com.
Three letter or LLL.com domains like this are getting harder and harder to acquire these days unless you spend a minimum of $xx,xxx or sometimes even upwards of seven figures to acquire them. Here is a list of LLL.com domains and a variety of prices courtesy of NameBio.com. This domain name exists upon a great acronym which could be used for hundreds of different companies around the world using EXL in their name. I personally like it because when you pronounce it, and sound it out it sounds like Excel.
EXL.com was first registered on 12-22-1995 and I can see that by simply searching the domain’s WhoIs.
This is great because it gives me a high level overview of the domains age and I can even dig down into past owners through a WhoIs search. Sometimes you want to go a little deeper though and see what the old website(s) used to look like that were developed on your domain. WhoIs doesn’t typically show you these things so this is where I recommend the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Below is the domain name timeline of EXL.com from the earliest online presence until current.
Let’s start with the earliest captured development of EXL.com on December 23, 1996. This is just a year and a day after the domain name was registered for the first time.
Moving forward a few years I can see the snapshot below from 1998.
Next here is a snapshot of June 06, 2000.
Next I can get more information about the old use of my domain name from the About page captured on February 05, 2002.
In 2003 the domain changes hands and doesn’t have any of the previous EXLibris branding or company information. Then in 2005 there is a GoDaddy Coming Soon parked landing page.
In 2006 all snapshots show as blank pages and then from 2007 all the way until 2015 nothing at all is captured being developed on the domain name. In 2015 there are a few captures that begin to show up, but all are just blank pages as if the domain was in possibly maintenance mode or something on a WordPress site. After that nothing shows again at all until December 14, 2018 but the page won’t resolve so I am not able to see what it is. The same is true for 2019. There are 3 total snapshots for the year, but nothing resolves. The information I am able to retain from using the Wayback Machine is always very interesting and enlightening.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine tool can get real fun if you start looking at sites like BestBuy, AOL and other sites that have been around a while. You can see the evolution of the companies and of web development in general.
In conclusion the Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a great tool for people buying, selling, investing in or developing domain names because it can give you a visual history of the domain names you own. I hope you find this article useful and are able to get great use out of the tool for your own research. Try it out and let me know your thoughts.
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Jason Franklin is a forward thinker, servant leader, technology enthusiast and humanitarian. His mission is to make a positive impact on humanity and the world a better place.
Jason is involved in technology, startups, energy, real estate, science, philosophy, volunteering and outreach.
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