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How to do this Growth Hack and what can it do for you?
Did you know that Facebook was formerly called “The Facebook”, that Twitter was spelled “twttr” and that YouTube was originally a dating site?
Or, did you know that if you type “relentless.com” into a browser, it redirects to Amazon?
Expected results of this Growth Hack
- Growth Hack Type: Go back to the past of a website to see what worked and what didn't
- Expected result: Improving your positioning and correcting elements that are potentially doomed to failure
Why do this Growth Hack?
This hack requires the use of archive.org or the “Way Back Machine” as it is also called.
For those who don't know, “archive.org”, better known as the Internet Archive, started in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium whose use was just beginning.
Like newspapers, content posted on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one saved it. In other words, if the site was detected by their robot, it would periodically take a screenshot of the home page. Their archives contain over 330 billion web pages!
So what is the hack?
If you Take an interest in a competitor, go and see what worked for him and what didn't.
For example, what services did they try to launch?
If they no longer offer the same service, it is clear that it did not work for them.
On the other hand, see What products or services remain prominently displayed on the home page If they remain constant, it tells you that this particular feature has always been popular.
With a tool like this, you can extract monthly or quarterly screenshots of your main competitor (s) and see how they've changed over time.
How do you do this Growth Hack?
1. Go to archive.org: “Way Back Machine”
2. Enter the name of the website, in our example: thefacebook.com
2. Click on a specific date and see the result
In summary, I highly recommend using this tool, known as the “Wayback Machine” on archive.org, when researching your competitors.
