From a column of links
to Watch, Listen, Subscribe

CNN.com’s November 2000 homepage is a narrow column of links: a small logo in the corner, then sections from World, U.S., Weather, Business and Sports all the way down to Books and Nature. The page stays narrow on our wide capture. Everything to its right is white.

The capture is from November 9 in UTC, but the page itself says November 8, 2000 -- Updated 9:09 p.m. EST. The main headline is a small link: Recount results due tomorrow. Below it, the Florida table says 19 of 67 counties reporting and another strip reads NOT CALLED: FL (25), OR (7), which are the figures on the page that night and not a final result.

Look past the count and the old web shows up in the controls. Search can target CNN.com, CNNSI.com, CNNfn.com or The Web, audio comes as Real or Windows Media, and there is a message board, an e-mail signup and a My Results option. Video and audio already exist. They are just more links in a page of links.

CNN says its website launched on August 30, 1995, as CNN Interactive.¹ Before the web, CNN says, CNN Interactive was distributed on mailed CD-ROMs. This selection begins in 2000. The first five years are missing.

On September 11 the top reads CNN.com SPECIAL REPORT. The blue section column is still there, but the main area shrinks to almost nothing: a photograph, AMERICA UNDER ATTACK, a short account and a few groups of links under a stamp that says Updated: 4:00 p.m. EDT -- 11 September 2001.

The page was cut down on purpose, so it would keep loading. CNN later described a scaled-down homepage it used for a few hours to handle the flood of people looking for news.¹ Within 15 minutes demand for the site rose tenfold, CNN’s William LeFebvre later told a USENIX conference. CNN.com served more than 132 million pages on September 11 and 304 million the next day.²

Here the headings do most of the work: U.S. SCENE, WORLD SCENE and RESCUE AND AFTERMATH. The sidebar still offers CNN ON PDA and show transcripts. Short blocks, plain links, nothing else.

In our 2002 capture the blue section column remains. The page around it is much fuller: under the lead, India, Pakistan heads hold summit, come weather, markets, a Quick Vote, video and highlights from every section, and the footer signs off with An AOL Time Warner Company.

The 2003 page leads with Rudolph awaits hearing. Its search box carries an enhanced by Google label, video links are marked premium content, and the footer has a little key explaining what the premium icon means. Paying for something on CNN’s site did not start with today’s Subscribe button.

Even an outbound link comes with a warning: All external sites will open in a new browser. CNN.com does not endorse external sites. The code lists language editions too. Japanese and Korean are among them, tucked into a drop-down selector instead of a row of visible sections.

AMERICA HAS SPOKEN crosses the page in huge capitals. Underneath it the sidebar and the small blocks all survive, along with a map and a result box showing Bush 274 and Kerry 252, the numbers on this page that day.

The result dominates. The portal is still there, though. Market quotes, a TV schedule, e-mail alerts and a featured-video box all share the screen with the giant headline, and the search box has quietly switched partners, because the captured text now says powered by Yahoo!.

On the ordinary February day shown for 2005, the headline shrinks back into a column: Bush to outline blueprint for 2nd term. A poll asks whether you plan to watch the State of the Union. Down in the footer, Add RSS headlines joins the ways to keep up.

By June 2006 the section links run across the top. The page is wider and the tall blue column is gone, and even the browser tab grows, from a plain CNN.com to a list that begins CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World…. The page also says how fresh its lists are: most-read stories update every 20 minutes, most-watched video every two hours.

A box promotes CNN Pipeline: Live and commercial free video with a Try it FREE button. CNN launched Pipeline in December 2005 as a subscription service: four live video streams for $2.95 a month or $24.95 a year.⁴ The footer is unusually blunt about it: Pay service with live and archived video.

It didn’t last. In May 2007 CNN said Pipeline’s video would move to the free part of the site when CNN.com was revamped on July 1, and a spokeswoman explained why (reported).⁵

In August 2007 the page has three columns: the bridge-collapse story, Latest News and Video. LIVE: Rescue efforts under way sits with the lead, and another link asks I-Report: Are you there? Share video, photos. CNN also invites readers to send in their own coverage.

Further down, the older conveniences hang on: local weather, a Quick Vote, stock indexes and TV listings. Open the full-page view to see how much sits below the first screen.

On November 5, 2008, CNN.com puts This is your victory above a big photograph of Barack Obama, with Obama beats McCain just below. The Video box on the right hasn’t moved. Across the top runs a narrow strip of race results.

The page goes beyond watching. The Replay invites readers to Watch, read, search Obama, McCain speeches, another block asks Your vote. Your stories. What’s your take on the results?, and between them one night’s news turns into clips, transcripts, results, analysis and readers’ replies.

By our November 2009 capture, CNN.com’s logo sits in the middle of a red masthead, with a red menu running underneath. CNN previewed this redesign in October 2009,⁶ and the November page pairs an Afghan-election story with Opinion: Turn back the hands of time, its headlines laid on dark bands across the photos.

The archive text introduces NewsPulse as Most popular stories right now. It also holds login and personalization forms, right down to the instructions for choosing a screen name and password.

In 2010 a Pentagon story shares the top with Taylor Swift’s Grammy win, and in 2011 it is tornado damage next to Fleeing Africa: Trek from war, poverty. The masthead doesn’t move. The grid takes whatever the day brings.

The 2011 page offers Connect your CNN & Facebook accounts and Log in with Facebook to see your friends’ activity. Weather, markets and sports stay close by. The front page is trying to become a personal dashboard as well as a list of news.

The 2012 election page puts WE’VE GOT MORE WORK TO DO above a large black rectangle. That rectangle is the archived video window, kept in the picture because it is part of the layout, even though there is nothing left in it to play.

Below it come analysis, ballot initiatives and Live blog: World reacts. The code also lists an electoral calculator and Facebook election insights. Video, a live blog, an electoral calculator and Facebook election insights, all covering one election.

On the 2013 page a strip of topics runs above the IRS story. In 2014 Acetaminophen warning gets the big treatment on an ordinary news day, with no election in sight. The grid and the red masthead stay.

Further down, both pages mix section news with blocks labeled READ THIS, WATCH THAT and links to games, while the footers offer RSS, podcasts, blogs, e-mail alerts and a shop. A single updated stamp still sits above the news.

CNN.com relaunched in early January 2015.⁷ By March the red masthead is gone. In its place come black navigation and a small red CNN square, while This is our war stretches across a large photograph of Jordan’s king and the lead story gets far more room than anything around it.

Several Top Stories now carry their own ages, such as 22 min, 4 hr and 20 min, and this capture has no single Updated stamp for the whole front page. The code’s menu also lists Longform, Investigations and Digital Studios.

In August 2015 CNN.com turned 20 and put up a retro page with hidden extras. It answered the Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A), and CNN said a message was hidden in its HTML source.¹

Our November 9, 2016 capture uses the same vocabulary: a wide headline, a wide photo, then smaller stories. The headline is Obama’s legacy nightmare. The result box underneath shows Trump 290 and Clinton 232. Those are the figures displayed in this capture, not the final tally.

The downloaded footer text credits a typeface, CNN Sans. The brand lives in the type as well as in the red logo.

The 2017 and 2019 captures show an ordinary three-column grid with no red alert strip. The 2018 page has one, right above the menu: North Korean official departs after meeting with Trump. Watch CNN. It is a single news item with a close button. The menu is still underneath.

Live TV remains in the header. The archived text for these years also lists Video, VR, edition preferences and long submenus, but much of the lead story is loaded by the page’s application, so a text-only download shows the menus far better than the news. For the headline and the photo, trust the still.

BIDEN WINS takes over the top of the November 2020 page. Race cards sit above it, and an alert strip sits above those. With a Watch CNN Live button riding on the lead photo and LIVE UPDATES under the story, every way out of the result leads straight into more coverage.

By June 2021 the grid is back to several stories, led on the left by What the JBS cyberattack means for your meat supply. The black navigation and red square stay. In the code, the Health section has grown a Life, But Better corner, with Sleep and Mindfulness among its topics. New subjects, same frame.

In 2023 the header gets slimmer. A NATO story leads a wide grid of photos and links, with a Live Updates story beneath it, and further down the section blocks start talking to you directly: Take a closer look, Take a break.

For the November 2024 result, TRUMP RETAKES POWER stretches across the page. A red LIVE UPDATES tag clings to the left photo, and CNN SHORTS heads a column on the right. A result headline, a running text feed and short videos, all on one screen.

The downloaded menu text for 2024 includes Watch, Listen and Subscribe. CNN started asking some U.S. readers to pay $3.99 a month for articles on October 1, 2024.⁸ The November capture shows the page after the change, 17 years after People don’t like to pay for stuff on the Internet.

The June 2025 page leads with Ukraine strikes several air bases deep inside Russia. A CNN Headlines tile sits next to the news. Hidden in the code is a whole Games menu, with a Daily Crossword, a Jumble Crossword, Sudoblock and Sudoku.

Our last capture is from September 1, 2026. The center column leads with a Tupac-trial headline, Nepal coverage fills the left side, streaming tiles fill the right, and up top sit Watch, Listen and a red Subscribe button.

Scroll the full page and a dark panel asks you to Subscribe to stream the full CNN experience. The downloaded text adds For Subscribers labels, app-download prompts and descriptions of QR codes. It still opens on headlines and pictures.

Now compare the first and last captures. In 2000 the section menu took up a whole column; in 2026 stories fill that space and the menu runs across the top. The logo is still recognizably CNN. Where it sits on the page is what changed.

2000 · Then2026 · Now

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