ZebraDomain.com

Ever bought an existing domain and wondered which websites it held before? I recently stumbled across a nice little online tool which can help you find out what was on the domain in previous years. This tool is called the WayBack Machine and is actually a part of the Internet Archive (a non profit organization created in order to record the “history” of the entire internet). Although the purpose of the WayBack Machine is mostly academic it could actually be a pretty useful tool for domain buyers looking to invest in an existing domain.

Here is an interesting example: the domain hybrid.com is currently offered for sale on Sedo for $990,000. Using WHOIS you can trace back the creation date of the domain way back to 1992, but much more interestingly using the WayBack Machine you can view some of the websites which used this domain starting back in 1996.

When you consider buying a top domain like hybrid.com the importance of knowing everything about your potential purchase is clear (nobody spends these sums of money without doing a proper research). But even when considering to purchase an existing domain for far less it might be a good idea to check the domain “history”. After all you would not like to find out by chance that your new religious website is sitting on a domain which used to hold an adult site or that your charity organization was once a home for illegal internet gambling.

There might be another reason for using the WayBack Machine. If you are considering buying an expired domain it might be a good idea to check its history. Why? Because you might find that in the past it hosted an online business. Some people used this knowledge to create a similar website on the same domain which could help them draw in more traffic, improve their search engine ranking and eventually make them more money.

I am going to continue using the WayBack Machine and report any interesting findings as I go along.