Before you buy an expired or aftermarket domain, find out what it was. A domain that hosted a real business for ten years may bring type-in traffic and links. One that hosted spam, adult content or a counterfeit shop can carry penalties and reputational baggage you don't want.
This tool summarises the Internet Archive's record: first capture, latest capture, and how many years have captures, with links to view each snapshot.
How to use the Website History Checker
- Enter a domain.
- Press Show history.
- Scan the year-by-year timeline for gaps and changes.
- Open snapshots from different years to see what the site contained.
How it works
We call the Wayback Machine's CDX API with one capture per year collapsed, plus the availability API for the closest recent snapshot. Some sites block archiving through robots rules, and some years simply weren't captured, so missing data is not proof of anything.
When to use it
- Expired domain due diligence
- Finding a domain's original business for outreach
- Supporting a UDRP response with evidence of prior use
Pro tips
- Look for sudden topic changes — they often mark a drop and re-registration.
- Foreign-language pharma or casino content in recent years is a red flag for SEO use.
Frequently asked questions
Why are there no captures?
The site may never have been crawled, may have blocked archiving, or the domain may never have hosted a site.
Can old content hurt a new site?
Search engines evaluate the current site, but a history of spam can affect how quickly a domain earns trust, and old backlinks may be irrelevant or toxic.
Is this the same as the Wayback Machine?
It uses the Wayback Machine's public APIs and links to it; the archive itself is run by the Internet Archive.