Last newsletter we touched on the WayBackMachine where you can "Browse through 30 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago." You simply type in the web address of the page or site you want to know about and presto -- a look back at the way things were...

Checking the information provided for Naples and Marco Island area websites offer a look at their initial internet presence as well as being able to follow changes that have taken place up to the present time. A few examples are given below: --

Both websites show histories dating back to 1996 at the WayBackMachine so lets start by taking a look at marcoisland.com on November 26, 1996 where you find the website starts out with "The Marco Island Chamber Of Commerce is pleased to sponsor this virtual business community for the region and for the people who visit our special part of Florida." -- click on the link to the Marco Island Chamber and you see their website as it was November 26, 1996.

December 24, 1997 shows marcoisland.com offering "Domain Names Available, Article about Searching the Internet, mention of South Florida Business Network and Marco Island virtual Business community" -- Marco Island Chamber is not mentioned.....

Continuing to follow marcoisland.com November 11, 1999 and December 4, 2000 show some changes - banners for new sites such as findfloridajobs.com, luxuryproperty.com, botspot.com. December 11, 2001 brings a new design and May 31, 2002 another design change and also new copyright information -- now the copyright reads "Premier Properties of Southwest Florida, Inc."... no mention of NIMS.

(2) Another choice would be Cyber Island - cyberisle.com (Dec. 1996) designers of marco-island-florida.com (Dec 1996) and naples-florida.com (also Dec 1996).

A look at December 24, 1997 for marco-island-florida.com shows the appearance of the Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce (icon at the top left of the page) in a sub-directory/folder at marco-island-florida.com/chamber. Later the Marco Island Chamber of Commerce icon is still showing but linking to marcochamber.com.

A look at the domain marcochamber.com shows its appearance in Novewmber 1999 and disappearance in May 2001. By doing a search for the Marco Island Chamber in the search engines we can find it currently listed as marcoislandchamber.org -- a subsequent search in the WayBackMachine bring up a history with the first results visable September 27, 2002

(3) Still another choice is marcopartners.com (Nov. 1996) and marcoisland.org (Dec. 1996) - featuring residents and visitor information.

You can follow their progress from December 1996, through a site design change April, 1999 that remains to be the design shown in February 2003

(4) December, 1996 naplesfla.com designed by Well Connected Inc.

The links continue to show a website available thru April, 1999 and after that time a domain name place holder page is found for further links.

Also, December, 1996 4what.com

(5) Arriving in January 1997, e-market.net - designers of bestofnaples.com (Dec. 1998) -

the design shown in December 1998 remains the same thru the last archived copy of June 2, 2002

(6) WhooDoo.net (Dec. 1998) - with a flash intro (oops...whoodoo did what, when?)

The WayBackMachine is a picture of the internet past - who was doing what and when...the results, sometimes fatal when several dot.coms became dot.bombs. A look at how a web company with great designs, visionary programming and even investor funding can fail if there is a fundamental lack of understanding about the internet and how all the pieces of a website must fit together in order to be successful.

It is a look at the internet history of any organization - such as the Marco Island Chamber of Commerce, as shown above - beginning with NIMS at marcoisland.com - then moving to a previously established Marco Island website provided by Cyber Island - marco-island-florida.com/chamber -- then establishing a domain presence - marcochamber.com that no longer exists and finally appearing at marcoislandchamber.org where they can be found today.

Whether you are on a fact finding mission, just curious, or hoping to retrieve lost information and past treasures, TheWayBackMachine will provide all of the above plus hours of entertainment. More on the WayBack Machine to come...

Next newsletter - A look at the Google and Alexa toobars, Alexa Traffic Rank and Google Page Rank.