Searching back in time

How far back does the search engine go? To the beginning? Just the latest version?

a reply to: Iamschist

You can try the way back machine archive.org... type in abovetopsecret.com

as many do not rate the search engine here

a reply to: douglas5

Yes the wayyyback machine will let you see all of it.

ATS Search is also ALL of ATS, but you're better of using the Archive Feature.

It'll let you bring up ATS content in months/years that you specify.

~tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Thank you, very useful.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Thank you tenth i did not know about that feature

From my personal experience, the various archives (USENET) go back all the way to the beginning of the Internet, even small discussion groups. Even back in the 1990's, there were some people who had access to search engines (Kibo and Kibology).

However, there are lots of startup company websites, personal blogs and websites that have just disappeared. Average lifespan of these sites is one month. Somebody decides to set up a blog, maintains it, gets married, discovers they have no more time to maintain it, so it gets shut down and the ISP just deletes it. Sometimes, these can be very informative, setting up obscure hardware, professional quality photographs of antiques or latest gadgets, references to videos. But all that information is just lost forever.

a reply to: stormcell

Yes, that is tragic. I have seen many good sites disappear, never to be seen again. It is a shame. I hate it when information is lost.

originally posted by: Iamschist
a reply to: stormcell

Yes, that is tragic. I have seen many good sites disappear, never to be seen again. It is a shame. I hate it when information is lost.

The best example I can think of is GeoCities. In 1994, before mobile devices and geo-location with GPS, Yahoo set up a web hosting service with websites organised by location. Because it was believed that the Internet was going to make geographical location irrelevant, the service was later abandoned and everything nearly deleted.

archiveteam.org...

Fortunately, those websites have been saved, and actually turned into an archeological exhibition.