How To Check When a Website Was Created

First, you should know that Google doesn’t reveal domain registration or true creation dates, so cached pages can be misleading. Here are the main methods to check the date of the published website.

Method #1: Use the Wayback Machine

This is the easiest way to check when a website was created. The detailed background of web pages can be shown by the Wayback Machine. It is possible that it won’t tell you exactly when the page was created, however, it will give its estimates on the creation date, taking into account the earliest archived snapshots. 

To estimate when a website was created, do the following:

• Visit https://archive.org/web/.
• Enter the full URL.
• Click the Browse History button.
• Look at the Calendar View (a timeline bar at the top with a calendar shows the dates when snapshots were taken).
• Find the oldest snapshot.

Method #2: Check the HTML code

Another method of checking the website creation date is to check the HTML code of the homepage. This is how you can do it:

1. Open the webpage in the browser.
2. Right-click on the page source (do not click on the links or images).
3. Select “View Page Source” (if it is not found, look for a similar option). You can also do Ctrl+U.
4. Analyze the HTML code behind the webpage.
5. Search with Ctrl+F for words similar to publication, foundation, or date, as the primary information comes from them.

Method #3: Website Footer or About Page

If you want to know how to check when a website was created, but the exact day is not important, here is another method. The footer section comes at the very bottom of most pages. It can sometimes be styled like: “© 2013–2025” OR “© 2018”
Also, read the “About Us” or “Our Story” sections, in which you pay attention to the parts like “Founded in 2010…”, “Since 2010”, etc.

Method #4: Business Registration or Trademark Filings

An alternative option to find when the website was created is the usage of the National trademark database and Business registries. They will give you valuable details about website creation, domain acquisition, etc.

Method #5: Contact the website owner

Let’s say you have checked the creation date of the website, but none of the methods gave credible results. This means that the only thing left is to modestly turn to the website owner to locate the necessary information.

Method #6: WHOIS Lookup

Many people use WHOIS Lookup as the best clue for website creation. Additionally, it gives other key details about website registration.

Method #7: Online Tools

Just search “domain age checker” and you will find many available free tools where you can insert your desired URL and get a piece of information about the age of the site. As GoPeak is a contextual link building agency, we use SEMrush or Ahrefs. They will help you estimate when the website became active or began to gain traction online. SEO Tools will also help you gain information about the traffic, backlinks, etc.

1. SEO Analysis

While evaluating the necessary parameters, search engines take the age of a website into account. Let’s see how it takes place:

• They say the older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune. The same is true for an old domain that, with time, has earned more trust. In turn, trust is equal to better rankings and good results.
• Following the same idea, an older website has had a lot of time to accumulate inbound links from various sources, and if these links come from prestigious ones, the search engine algorithms meet the expectations and show perfect results.
• The longevity of the website may lead to better results in search, while a new website does not have enough time to build authority and be regarded as a trustworthy source.

2. Credibility

• A website that has a background of three months may not be perceived as legitimate as a website that has lived for 5 to 10 years.
• The older the website, the more reputable the business is. It shows maturity with its own footprint, which builds trust immediately.
• If it is an e-commerce site, the customers will feel confident to trust a site that has a rich background, while they can be uneasy about a newly launched website.

3. Competitor Research

• Knowing when a website was created speaks to precise market entry timing. The information about launching the site can tell you when the competitor appeared in the market.
• Tracking the rise of their domain and its content with tools like Ahrefs or the Wayback Machine allows you to understand how quickly they expanded.
• You can get meaningful takeaways for your strategy, including SEO, content, and backlinking, if the new site outperforms the old one.

4. Legal & Copyright Checks

• When there is a need to support copyright claims or disputes, having exact information about when the content of the site appeared online helps a lot.
• Whenever there is a trademark and domain conflict, the date of website creation serves as substantiating data.
• In the case of using Wayback Machine, it is possible to get historical snapshots of web pages, which, as archival evidence, can be used in legal proceedings showing when the content became accessible.

After reading the article, one can easily claim that the more information you have about the website as how old the domain is or how to find the number of pages on a website, the more thoroughly the SEO strategy will be developed. If the SEO approach is strategic and well-structured, search engines prefer it over other content.

You learned multiple ways of finding the date of website creation. It is already obvious that knowing the website creation date is of great importance, particularly since it is N1’s guarantee that the information you get from the site is correct and reliable. Keep in mind that cross-referencing the above-mentioned methods will give the most accurate picture.