From “Click on the Golden Arches”
to “Order Now”

The oldest homepage we found, from November 10, 1996, is a red page with the arches, the McDonald's name and a few lines of yellow text. The first is a question: Did you know... ...that it took three years to sell 100 million hamburgers, but by our 15th anniversary, we were selling them at a rate of 3.5 million per day? Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's in 1955,[7] so that 15th anniversary was decades earlier. The 3.5 million is a story about the past, not a 1996 sales figure.

The second line is the only way in: Click on the Golden Arches to continue. The logo is the door. The page's title is McDonalds Splash, without the apostrophe.

When Quittner asked McDonald's about the internet, a media-relations person asked him back, Are you finding that the internet is a big thing? The WHOIS record he printed lists his own name as the administrative contact for mcdonalds.com.[1]

By June 1997 a yellow rail called Featured Areas sits beside the red page with two blue buttons, McDonald's Japan and McWorld, the second captioned HeY, iT CouLD HaPPeN. The arches still have to be clicked, now to enter the main site!

In December 1998 the splash page is gone. The homepage opens straight onto a white news column inside a yellow frame, with seven tabs down the left: What's New, Corporate, Food, Careers, Community, Sports and Merchandise. A round badge advertises a Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog Happy Meal In The U.S.A.

The news list mixes everything the company had going on: New Clip-on Happy Meal Toys with Winnie-the-Pooh, NASCAR race results from Rockingham, a 2-For-1 Stock Split FAQ for shareholders. One headline is The Legend of Grimace Island, The newest animated video, starring Ronald McDonald and his McDonaldland friends. Remember the purple one. He comes back in 2023.

The April 1999 capture adds an eighth tab, Collectibles, and a teaser for an upcoming promotion: Coming Soon! Ty® teenie Beanie Babies™! The small print below promises They're Back! and a start date of May 21st at participating McDonald's.

By our June 2000 capture, mcdonalds.com is no longer an American page. A globe fills the middle of a red screen, and a magnifying glass held over America shows a McDonald's restaurant. Links curve around it: Corporate, RMHC, Restaurant Locator, Ronald & Friends, Search. At the bottom, under Country Sites, a drop-down says Select Country. Its code lists 29 countries, from Argentina to the USA.

The Beanie Babies are still around, now in the footer: © 1993-2000 Ty Inc., then Ty® Beanie Babies® are available at finer retail stores.

In 2001 and 2002 the globe stays and a What's New! list of corporate press releases grows under it, starting with Jeff Stratton Named President of McDonald's U.S. West Division in June 2001. The country list grows too, to 36 countries in 2001 and 41 in 2002. From 2001 the USA is listed twice, once at the top and once in its alphabetical place.

By June 2003 the drop-down's code lists 55 countries, from Argentina to Yugoslavia. Three small tiles sit under McDonald's USA What's New!: Disney's Inspector Gadget 2, New Premium Salads! and Get the Facts. The HTML we downloaded for the same capture names a partly different set in its alt texts: McDonald's New McGriddles Breakfast Sandwiches!, McDonald's Happy Meal Featuring Disney - PIXAR Finding Nemo!, McDonald's New Premium Salads! and Get the Facts about McDonald's Food Products.

The press list below them has a line that looks dull: McDonald's Unveils New Brand Creative Direction at Worldwide Marketing Conference in Chicago. That direction had a name. The global i'm lovin' it campaign launched in Munich on September 2, 2003, and McDonald's announced its U.S. launch for September 29.[2] In the next capture we have, the slogan sits under the arches in place of the company's name.

In June 2005 the red is gone. The gateway is black, with small arches in the top-left corner and i'm lovin' it under them where the McDonald's name used to be. Across the middle runs a sentence for you to finish: I'm going to McDonald's, an arrow, and a red menu, Select Country/Market. That menu's code now lists 61 places.

Below it, a strip of three photographs. In 2006 three panels take its place, Corporate McDonald's, What's New and McDonald's USA, with cut-out photos of young people over red lettering that repeats the slogan in other languages. The 2007 capture keeps the arrangement, with the middle heading left blank.

The footer changes a little each year. In 2006 it gains Podcasts and Voice. In 2007 the code carries a fallback line for the animated panel, You don't have a flash plugin installed or javascript enabled. The copyright line in that June 2007 capture still says ©2005-2006.

In June 2009 the browser title says McDonald's USA, and the root address shows the American site straight away. The menu bar reads like a magazine: McCafé, Food Nutrition & Fitness, Work @ McDonald's, Kids, Havin' Fun, In the News, Get Shoppin'. The main panel is a theater curtain, the McCafé Theatré, which invites you to watch the mini-plays and McCafé your day. The country list has shrunk to a footer link, Countries.

By June 2010 the homepage has its own U.S. address, /us/en/home.html, and a title that reads Home :: McDonalds.com. It is a red poster: a row of burgers, THE SIMPLE JOY OF BURGERS. and a button, CLICK FOR MORE JOY. A narrow red menu runs down the left. Its Menu section lists 13 items in the code, Dollar Menu, Extra Value Meals and Mighty Kids Meals among them.

The page's share menu, in its code, lists Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us and Digg.

From 2010 to 2015 our captures are all from mid-June, so each one shows that summer's big push, and the left menu stays put while the poster changes. In June 2011 the whole screen turns orange for the McNuggets Saucy Challenge. Six sauce packets stand over six dips: creamy ranch, sweet chili, spicy buffalo, honey mustard, tangy BarBeQue and sweet 'n sour. The first four carry a corner flag that says new.

June 2012 is turquoise. A striped hammock hangs across the screen beside Find your summer state of mind. The black bar at the top has gained a counter, My Meal Builder 0 items, which stays there through 2015. The campaign pictures have no description at all in the code: their alt text is just file.

In June 2013 the background goes white for The New Bacon & Cheese Quarter Pounder, One of three new delicious burgers, with a brown button asking What's your flavor?

June 2014 is green, ruled like a goal net, with a fries carton covered in colorful drawings. June 2015 is turquoise again with clouds, balloons and a price: DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER & SMALL FRIES, FOR JUST $2.50, SAVOR YOUR SUMMER. In 2015 the arches stand alone in their red tab, without the slogan that replaced the company's name in 2005, though i'm lovin' it is still an item in the left menu.

One line in the menu's code changes too: Your Questions Answered in 2014, Our Food. Your Questions. in 2015.

When the homepage comes back into view in June 2019, it's white, wide and calm. The left menu is gone. The first slide says Get the App over a phone showing a carton of fries. The browser title, McDonald's: Burgers, Fries & More. Quality Ingredients., is the one every capture after it still carries in 2026.

The first item in the code's food menu is All Day Breakfast. It launched nationwide on October 6, 2015, and McDonald's announced it with the line 10:30 a.m. will no longer be the end of breakfast.[3] The item is still at the top of the menu in 2020. In our 2021 capture it's gone.

June 2020 opens with a statement instead. A yellow box with the arches sits beside They Were One of Us and a statement: We stand for victims of systemic oppression and violence and with Black communities across America. The code also pitches the app as Contactless Mobile Order & Pay, and its top bar has a new link, Order on Uber Eats.

Three months later a rapper's name went on the menu. From September 8, 2020, participating U.S. restaurants sold the Travis Scott meal: a Quarter Pounder with Cheese with bacon and lettuce, medium fries with BBQ sauce and a Sprite, for $6. McDonald's said the last celebrity name on its menu had been Michael Jordan's, in 1992.[9]

By our June 2021 capture, the top bar has a button that every later capture keeps: Order Now. The first slide sells clothes. BTS x McDonald's Merch, with a purple bathrobe and a black hoodie, and the line Shop the Logo Collection of exclusive merch designed by BTS. The food list in the menu's code now ends with $1 $2 $3 Dollar Menu.

A year later the menu bar has a new item, MyMcDonald's Rewards. The U.S. loyalty program had started in July 2021.[4] The first row is the pitch: Free McNuggets® Now. Free McDonald's Later. Below it is a film competition, Your Story Deserves a Hollywood Ending, which opens with Latinos have stories to tell, yet they make up less than 1% of the ones told in Hollywood.

Twenty-five years after Grimace Island, Grimace gets the top of the page. June 2023 leads with Grimace's B-day Is Best B-day, and the copy talks like a text message: HBD, purple pal. The Grimace Birthday Meal and its purple shake went on sale on June 12, along with a free game for desktop and mobile.[5] This capture is from June 16, four days in.

The February 27, 2024 capture belongs to a restaurant that didn't exist. WcDonald's is the fictional McDonald's of anime, and that month McDonald's moved it from fiction to real life.[6] The homepage sells Try New Savory Chili WcDonald's Sauce and promises the special move you'll shout Shounen-style when you unlock bonus points in the app. Elsewhere on the page, a quote card is signed by the Hamburglar: “McD's Best Burgers Ever.” - Hamburglar. A McD's x Crocs row offers limited edition Grimace, Birdie or Hamburglar Crocs.

January 2025 opens with a small grey notice at the top, Our Terms and Conditions have changed. Below it is a blue sign, Wanna save $$? Meet McValue™, and an offer for new app users, Get a Free McCrispy in the App, on a first purchase of $1 or more, with Rewards opt-in. The fine print does the maths: Every $1 you spend earns 100 points, redeemable for free food.

In June 2026 the first row is a red picture of cups and a burger: The FIFA World Cup™ Meal gets you ready for matchday. Buy it and you score 1 of 9 collectible cups featuring legendary players and the iconic Grimace. That's his fourth appearance on these pages. In the code's menu, McValue™ has become McValue®, and the Snack Wrap® is listed between the McNuggets and the fries.

When we checked the live U.S. homepage in October 2026, it had moved on to Monopoly: Get Monopoly menu items with the app or your Rewards Code.[8] The arches haven't gone anywhere. In 1996 they were the door you had to click. Thirty years on, the way in is a button: Order Now.

1996 · Click on the Golden Arches1996 · Then2026 · Order Now2026 · June

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