How to Research a Company History Through Their Website Changes

A company's website is a running record of what it said about itself: who led it, what it sold, what it charged and what it promised. Archived copies let you read that record back through the years.

1. Find the archived copies

1. Search for the company's domain in the Wayback Machine.
2. Look at the calendar to see how far back captures go and how often the site was saved.
3. Open a capture from each year to get a quick timeline.

Wayback Quick Access shows whether a page has archived copies and opens the full capture list in one click, while you're on the company's site.

2. The pages that tell the story

• About and history pages: founding stories often change as companies grow.
• Team and leadership pages: when executives joined and left.
• Products and services: what was launched, renamed or quietly dropped.
• Pricing: how prices and plans changed.
• Customers and partners: logos that appeared and disappeared.
• Press and news pages: announcements in the company's own words.
• Terms and privacy policies: changes in what users agree to.

3. Find pages that were removed

Search the Wayback Machine with a wildcard, such as example.com/products/*, to list every captured address under a path, including pages no longer on the site. See finding removed product pages and prices.

4. Compare versions

The Wayback Machine's Changes view highlights differences between two captures of the same page, useful for spotting edited claims or removed names.

5. Confirm with other records

• Company registries: Companies House in the UK, state business registries in the US.
• Public company filings: SEC EDGAR for US-listed companies.
• Domain records: a WHOIS lookup shows when the domain was registered.
• News coverage and press releases from the time.
• Professional profiles of past employees.

Keep careful records

• Save the archived address and capture date for everything you rely on.
• Take screenshots of key captures.
• Note what each source shows. Sticky Notes Anywhere keeps notes on the pages themselves, stored in your browser.

Know the limits

Archives miss pages, especially ones behind logins or built with heavy JavaScript, and capture dates can be months apart. A change could have happened any time between two captures. See verifying claims with archives and how journalists use the Wayback Machine.