6 ways Wayback Machine can help your Business
We all have visited libraries sometimes in our lives, however, have we ever visited a digital library? Well, Wayback Machine is a virtual library where we can go through any website ever made on the World Wide Web. This website is dedicated solely for the purpose to store web pages and make them available to anyone and everyone who visits it.
A Virtual Memory Tour
No reward for guessing, the first basic function of Wayback – the website tour. Here’s what I mean when I say a tour – this tool has a feature that enables you to witness how a site has evolved over the years. This helps you to explore the snapshots of the sites and can be a helping hand to analyze the growth of your competitors over the years. With the help of Wayback, you can dig up changes that were made and how these changes have affected the site’s overall performance and rankings. This will give you a detailed insight into the dos’ and don’ts for your own website. Also, if there are not many snapshots of the sites you are researching upon, you can always scroll down to the dates and time intervals between which these changes were made.
Detailed research of prospective clients
On getting new clients, the first thing you should do is tie your shoes and research every nook and cranny about them, about their prior activities and everything else. This is where Wayback makes a hero entry and gives you a closer look at the client’s website from the very beginning. The details will introduce you to the traits that reflect a major part of the thought process of your prospective clients. This is an effective tool to get acquainted with your client inside out.
Discover the age-old websites
You are not provided with prior notice before a virus is all set to attack the website – and hence the loss of data doesn’t ring the doorbell, so how would you keep yourself prepared? Wayback has a solution to that as well. It gives you access to the data which is lost or accidentally deleted if only the website is not password protected. This tool can be beneficial as one can dig into the past and cream out the best. But do note, Wayback machine is not a replacement of backups, neither it can be. These are two different processes for the two different purpose.
Be a step ahead of your competitors
One of the most effective functions of the Wayback machine is, that it allows you to perform an analysis of the market in general and about your competitors in particular. An example would give you a clear instinct on the idea. Suppose a firm had earned a considerably high revenue in the past year. This year, it has increased its spending on the same, but, on the contrary, it earned low revenues. Their website could reflect what went wrong and a comparison of the revenues would help you uncover the loopholes. This will help you to examine the effects of the loss and we all know there’s no better teacher than failures!
Discover old URL Structures
When a site has been existing for decades, it generally changes the pattern, looks and the structure of the site. This includes a change in the URL pattern. To explore one’s website you need the exact URL address, this is when Wayback comes to your rescue. If you have a general idea when the changes had occurred, the Wayback machine will help you map out the old structure of the URL.
Identify the former format
Some businesses who have been existing for decades may find it beneficial to alter their format complying to the trend. Through Wayback, you have a look into the old format and compare it with the recent one. The folders which may have been diluted or expanded can be seen. This function will help you to know the way the site has been organized. You can utilize the tool to structure your website.
The final piece of advice!
No doubt the Wayback machine is the gizmo we all need. But is it reliable? Unfortunately, no. what if someday archive.org stops working? Then what? Well, we have a solution to that too. Here are a handful of best alternatives which will help you to strategize your business activities – Alexa, Yubnub, Pagefreezer, and Stillio. Among all, your best website archiving pick would be Stillio, as it has an automatic screenshot saver, and provides services like web archiving, trend tracking, website compliance, to name a few.