Take me Wayback to 1996!

I still can't get my head around Archive.org's Internet Archive, also known as the Wayback Machine. How can it possibly excavate old versions of a website long after they have been laid to rest?
Usually you only get the skeleton layout of a web-page. However, in many cases, things are just as they were back in, say, February 1997.

Now that the net is a decade old or nearabouts, it's fascinating to see how primitive some websites were, especially the ones belonging to affluent companies, governments and soon-to-be governments. In fact, one of the first things I did was look up this is looking up Labour's website.

You get glimpses of Britain long before it was dragged into war and of Labour shortly before it was rebranded as 'New'.
You can even still attend the 'Virtual 1996 Labour Conference', should you want to.

Staying in that same year, my next portal of call was the online NME (during the years when it was still vaguely readable), an almost unrecognisable Google from '98 and a completely intact Belle & Sebastian session from John Peel's web-page in 2002!
It was also really interesting to get a first-hand view of Friends Reunited's humble beginnings in 2000, before it was sold to some big conglomerate.

There is of course a moral quandry surrounding such an invention.
I wonder if website owners know that earlier versions of their site are available, featuring content they may no longer want to be out there.

Note: Since posting this, I've read several articles from this year about the Machine's future being threatened by a lawsuit.
p.s: I also found Blogger™ c.1999! I'm bored, aren't I! Blogger™ c.1999

Car makes getaway from advert in Park Road