Pro tip: Check out the Wayback Machine for your hometown's first website

I used to think old websites were just outdated and pointless. On a whim, I looked up my city on the Wayback Machine and found a page from 1996. It was basically a digital brochure for local shops with plain HTML and tiny pictures of main street. Seeing how much has grown since then, both in how sites look and what stores are around, really stuck with me. In my experience, it's like a peek into a whole different era of the internet. Now, I browse archives to see how spots I know have been posted online over the years. Your mileage may vary, but for me, it's a neat way to touch base with the past. Take this with a grain of salt, but you might get hooked too.

3 comments

3 Comments

wyattbennett1mo agoMost Upvoted

You spent a whole weekend on a GeoCities page? That's some serious dedication, man. I can't imagine reading fan theories from 2002 for that long.

robin7772mo ago

But who cares about dead websites?

fiona6072mo ago

I used to totally agree with you, @robin777. Then I spent a weekend reading a 2002 GeoCities site saved by the Wayback Machine, full of fan theories for a show my mom loved. It was a direct line to how people really talked and felt back then, stuff you never find in history books. Now I see dead sites as little digital time capsules, and I definitely care about saving them.