How to look up the history of a domain name with web archives
The history of a domain name is the most decisive criterion to judge its health. Web archives show what a site used to be, year after year, and reveal a spam past that no WHOIS can show.
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Web archives
Since 1996, public web archives have captured billions of pages. For a given domain, you get the first and last snapshot, the density of snapshots per year and the content of each one. DomaineScore sums up the coverage per half-year and automatically analyses several snapshots spread over time.
The signals to watch
- Change of language: an English site that turns Chinese, Russian or Indonesian for a while often points to a takeover by a spam network.
- Change of topic: a gardening blog suddenly showing casino, betting, loan, pharmacy or counterfeit pages.
- Long gaps: more than 18 months without a snapshot means a domain dropped then registered again; the WHOIS "age" then means nothing (see re-registered domains).
- Redirects: a domain that redirected to a shady site inherits its reputation.
- Parking pages for years: little value, but little risk.
Finding the previous owner
The current WHOIS is almost always redacted. The legal notices, footers and "about" pages of old snapshots often identify the former publisher and explain why the domain was dropped. The current registry data is one WHOIS lookup away.
Other sources
Public web graphs also record links between domains, and Google's site: operator shows what is still indexed. None of these sources is complete: cross-checking them is what gives a reliable picture.
Frequently asked questions
How can I see the history of a website?
Analyse the domain on DomaineScore: the yearly timeline and the analysed snapshots appear in the result, with the detected language and any risky content.
Can I find the past owners of a domain name?
Paid historical WHOIS services keep old records. For free, archived legal notices are the best lead.
Is a domain with no history bad?
No: it is a new or never-used domain. It carries no risk and no authority. It is simply less interesting for SEO than an expired domain with a clean history.