The homepages
Click a page to read its story.
- adobe.com – 1997Jun 25, 1997
adobe.com in June 1997: features on Video for the Internet and Sound with PageMill, and “Adobe site chosen as top five percent of the Web”.
- altavista.com – 1997Apr 12, 1997
AltaVista in April 1997: the Digital-hosted search page counting “31 million pages found on 627,000 servers” and offering a Dilbert trivia game.
- aol.com – 1997Jun 25, 1997
AOL in June 1997: a blue page with the AOL Instant Messenger beta and AOL NetFind at the top.
- apple.com – 1997Jul 15, 1997
Still the red portal: Mac OS 8 pre-order, eMate 300, “Welcome to Mars”.
- bbc.co.uk – 1997Jun 16, 1997
The BBC Online in June 1997: a black page in frames, with a column of menu buttons from “UK TELEVISION” to “CONTACT”.
- bestbuy.com – 1997Jun 7, 1997
Best Buy in June 1997: purple frames, “Just the store you’ve been shopping for.” and a sweepstakes extended after a technical glitch.
- blizzard.com – 1997Dec 10, 1997
Blizzard's black StarCraft page: “The future is coming. And it's not a nice place to live.”
- disney.com – 1997Feb 9, 1997
disney.com in 1997: a framed page dated June 23, 1997, with Disney Institute, the Daily Blast (“Try it FREE today!”) and five character heads.
- gamespot.com – 1997Jun 5, 1997
GameSpot's 1997 homepage: The compact black homepage adds orange navigation buttons below the lead stories.
- geocities.com – 1997Jul 2, 1997
GeoCities homepage: “735,000 members and growing...”, 37 neighborhoods and a cow-tipping page at Area51/Vault6963.
- hotmail.com – 1997Dec 12, 1997
Hotmail on blue: a red emblem, “The World's FREE Web-Based Email”, a Frames / No Frames choice and two awards.
- lego.com – 1997Jun 15, 1997
LEGO.com in June 1997: the same baseplate and welcome letter, with Regional Sites in the minifigure menu.
- lycos.com – 1997Dec 10, 1997
Lycos in December 1997: one search box whose menu also lists “UPS Tracking #”, above 18 Web Guide categories from Autos to Travel.
- mcdonalds.com – 1997Jun 7, 1997
McDonald's splash page with a yellow “Featured Areas” rail: McDonald's Japan and McWorld.
- nintendo.com – 1997Dec 10, 1997
Nintendo’s homepage in December 1997: one Nintendo Power Source banner on a white page, “Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside tips-off”, beside the Nintendo 64 logo.
- nokia.com – 1997Jun 15, 1997
Nokia's homepage in June 1997: the same oval buttons, a new box for www.nokia.com/thesaint and “Copyright © Nokia 1995, 1996, 1997”.
- nytimes.com – 1997Apr 15, 1997
NYTimes.com in April 1997: the same picture front page, a “NEW: Books” corner and headlines dated March 10, 1997.
- spacejam.com – 1997Apr 12, 1997
The same Space Jam entrance: a blue Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan portrait over the word “click”.
- walmart.com – 1997Apr 14, 1997
walmart.com in April 1997: the same World At Large page, its visit counter now running “since Friday, March 21 1997”.
- yahoo.com – 1997Jun 14, 1997
Yahoo in June 1997: the directory in two columns, with headlines like “Bulls Win Title” at the top.
- ea.com – 1997Jun 5, 1997
First captureElectronic Arts' “welcome to ea online” entrance: six game pictures around the wordmark, studio badges (Origin among them) in a black rail.
- ebay.com – 1997Jun 14, 1997
First captureeBay’s homepage in June 1997: “Welcome to eBay!”, an AuctionWeb link, introductory text and a copyright line; no pictures render.
- nick.com – 1997Apr 30, 1997
First captureNick.com’s April 1997 coming-soon page: an orange Nickelodeon bone, “COMING...” and “Try Nick on AOL”.
One capture per site from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, checked by eye. What a capture shows is what the archive kept that day: some images and scripts are missing.
Every year
How well do you know old homepages? See a capture, guess its year.
▶ Play Guess the Year