The Way Back Machine is not exactly new. It’s been around for a long time but if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a component of the Internet Archive that allows you to browse the archived snapshots of websites that were captured. This allows you to see websites as they were back in the day. The archives go back to 1996 (though not all websites ever created are archived) and the original WayBackMachine came out in 2001. Unfortunately, that original interface has been becoming less and less usable thanks to long load times. Fortunately, there is a new WayBackMachine in beta that’s also getting a little more focus.
The new WayBackMachine beta scores its own domain at waybackmachine.org. Along with being much faster, it also gains a new functionality that allows you to easily navigate a site with a visual representation of when and how many pages were archived.
The good news is that this previously useful tool is gaining new life and an improved interface. Now, if the Internet Archive will also increase how frequent it archives pages and then how soon they’re available, there would be a very useful caching tool.