Take Me Back: Validating the Wayback Machine as a Measure of Website Evolution

Drawing on Diffusion of Innovations theory, this study of 175 Malaysian hotel websites validates the Wayback Machine (WM) — a web-based tool that archives websites — as a means to study website evolution. The results support validating the Wayback Machine for studying website evolution, and extend hospitality diffusion research to Malaysia. In line with prior research, there were significant positive relationships between hotel size, category and affiliation with two variables provided by the WM — website age and number of updates. Larger, higher-rated and affiliated hotels launched their websites earlier and updated their sites more often than smaller, lower-rated and independent hotels.

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