Published: January 28, 2016 by Anna Maloney

In 2016, the Internet Archive celebrates its 20-year anniversary. Created in 1996 to capture and preserve websites and web pages, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is the front-end, user interface for these archived sites. This week, Forbes’ Kalev Leetaru looks into the history of this complex data capture and the organization’s Worldwide Web Crawls. The image below, from February 20, 1997, is the first SJSU homepage capture available through the Wayback Machine.

In addition to being a tool for researchers and web historians, it can be an invaluable resource for archivists and organizations who lack the means to successfully manage the legacy of their own web presence.