Published On: 01 May, 2018 | Last Updated: 27 Jan, 2026
Reading Time: 2 minutesIf you are in the US and are reading this but haven’t voted, GO VOTE NOW. If you have voted, then please, continue.
One of my son’s favorite movies of all time is Mr. Peabody & Sherman. When it came out he’d sit in his tent and pretend it was the Wayback Machine and go back in time. He would use it was to go back and re-eat the cookie he just ate. But 12 trips “back in time” and a tummy ache later he decided it was a bad idea.
As SEOs we have an actual Wayback Machine that allows us to go back in time and look at how sites used to be structured. And with all the elevated hoopla around the election this year I thought it would be interesting to look at the prominent news sites and compare how they looked then and now (all screenshots were taken around election time). The sites I checked out were:
• CNN.com
• Foxnews.com (please hold all laughter until the end of the post)
• Time.com
• Drudgereport.com
• Politico.com
CNN.com now:
Notice any difference? Instead of a top level navigation everything is to the left. In addition, there is no major video above the fold. There is also a lot more content and information than there is now. Users had more options and weren’t visually being forced to pick between two different call to actions.
Foxnews.com now:
See the navigation then? I don’t. They actually have less information on their homepage then than they do now. Currently, Foxnews.com has a top level navigation now as well as a drop-down ad I was able to get a screenshot of as well as an ad in the sidebar. On top of this if you go to Foxnews.com now their site has an “almost” version of endless scroll and a lot of links in their footer.
Time.com now:
Time.com then (you might have to wait a while for the 302 redirect from time.com/time to go through):
Again, all screenshots were taken around election time in 2004 (the first few days in November). See much calls to action about the election? Not much. The navigation is on the left and you’ll see “Time Online Edition” in the header. Currently “online edition” has been removed. In addition to that, you’ll notice that the current version has a mobile navigation symbol in the top left corner. It’s not readily available to current users.
Drudgereport.com now:
Another site with no navigation (now or then). But you’ll notice that then Drudge Report had a small call to action to “Visit Our Advertisers”. Now that same section simply reads “Advertisement”.
Then seems to have more content/links to more content than it currently does, but regardless both versions are linking to other sources.
All in all, not a lot has changed on this site.
Politico.com now:
Well, what can you say about this site now and then? What used to be a directory/link farm has now become a bigger political news outlet.
Big differences between the majority right? Seems as if there was more information/choices then than there is now. In addition, quite a few less ads and calls to action for users to deal with.
What were some major differences you observed between then and now?
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