Featured contributors, mobile interfaces, integrated social media content: the latest redesign of the official MLS website is a world away from the initial homepage for the league that launched in the mid-1990s. Always dedicated to exploring the past, we thought it might be a good time to look back to a few of the previous iterations of the site via the Wayback Machine (hence some of the missing images, sorry).

1997

Like most websites during the early years of internet diffusion, MLSNet.com can be best described as stark. Besides the serious lack of dancing skeleton GIFS, most notable is the headline, “San Jose tops MetroStars in 11-round shootout.” That’s a time capsule.

1998

“Get ‘MLS Things’ of six top players!” Despite a bit of research, we’ve yet to find a suitable explanation for what ‘things’ are. Some things are better left to the past.

2001

Peer closely at the links in the footer, and you’ll find the “Rules of Soccer.”

2003

That pesky “Rules of Soccer” link is still on the landing page, but so is an advertisement for one of the initial versions of MLS Live. Impressive how quick MLS was to embrace such bandwidth-heavy technology.

2006

Headlines include “Chivas wins 100-hour game 437-429.”

2008

At this point, the level of content is relatively similar to the modern site, with distinctions coming mostly from layout options.

2010

A new URL: MLSSoccer.com launched, but that didn’t cut down on the growing homepage length and clutter.

2013

The current site. Simpler, whiter – better?