January Feature
Finding New Information from Old Websites
by Cynthia_Hetherington at Aon.com
Years ago we wrote about Deconstructing Websites for Company Intelligence. It's hard to believe that was seven years ago. The same tactics and investigative fundamentals still exist. You should always look at all parts of a website, all pages and all links in and out for real intelligence. Who owns it, who pays the bills and the information they are sharing on these pages. Do not forget to look at the legal disclaimers, copyright information as well as the About Us page. Any one of these could reveal a source you didn’t expect.
However if the website you want is no longer active, you should consider looking for older cached (saved) versions of it through the following sources.
The Wayback Machine on archive.org is the best *if* you know the URL of the website. They were running a search engine within Archive.org years ago named Recall, but was shut down when the researcher moved.
That said, here are some other sources.
Google.com (cache server) Run a search on the target's name, location, phone numbers (without the common markings, run them as numbers divided by spaces within quotes) i.e. "xxx xxx xxxx" This may result in a match on the cached links, click on cached, which will lead you to an imaged version.
Zoominfo.com - known as a human resource (aka Ego Surf) engine, search on the owners/principals of the former company. Or search on company name itself. The links within the found information are cached so you often times find removed information from this service.
Ownership information, albeit old, is resold to a few information aggregators like Accurint and Dialog. Accurint (aka Irbsearch.com) is cheapest and easiest allowing you to search by name, street, domain name, phone number, or possible contact. Dialog's database divides their services from Whois, to Whowas and has a more limited search capability.
