What is the Wayback Machine?
The Wayback Machine is one of the most well known parts of the Internet Archive site.
It is a digital archive of the WWW (World Wide Web). The non-profit organization Internet Archive, based in San Francisco, founded the Wayback Machine.
Wayback Machine uses web crawler software to archive web pages that people can see even after years.
At the time of writing this document, it contains approximately 563 billion web pages, and many of these pages are added every year.
List of the best alternatives to the Wayback Machine
1. Stillio.
Stillio Save web pages by taking screenshots at specific intervals.
It can be a daily, hourly, or as required by the user. The screenshots are saved in PNG format and the content is crystal clear.
It is also possible to edit the screenshot in the dimensions of your choice.
Stillio records information from any website from time to time.
Therefore, as soon as you log in, you can access all of the records and associated information on your dashboard. It offers a 14-day trial period, then subscription plans starting at $29 per month.
2. VisualPing.
Visualping is a well-known website change detection software that allows you to track changes to a website and receive an email notification when a website is changed.
It's used by over two million users, including 85% of Fortune 500 companies. Visualping is very easy to use, and it's free for up to 5 pages per day.
To start tracking changes to a website, simply enter the URL of the page you want to monitor, select the area of the page you are interested in, and choose how often you want the page to be checked. It offers a few advanced settings to block certain elements or introduce login credentials, among other things.
Visualping can help overcome some of the limitations of Wayback Machine, as it can crawl all sorts of websites, like social media updates or password-protected pages.
And it also archives the copies so you can access all the different versions.
3. Internet Archive.
Internet Archive is one of the most used Internet libraries for web results, whether they are e-books, software, movies, music, etc.
It stores the history of more than 690 billion web pages that anyone can access at any time.
All results are available free of charge to its users. The platform works thanks to donations.
The Internet Archive began its journey in 1996 by archiving the web. Today, it has more than 25 years of history of web pages and files accessible via the Wayback Machine.
Anyone can create a free account with the Internet Archive and save copies of works in their special collection.
4. Pagefreezer.
Pagefreezer is one of the best alternatives to the Wayback Machine based on cloud storage. It is a social media and website archiving platform that is used by many businesses to protect their content.
What makes it different from Wayback Machine is that you can manage all of its services with a single account. It is quite easy to work with Pagefreezer because it stores all the archives in one place.
There is no need to install Pagefreezer, as its archiving process is automatic.
Such an automatic process guarantees the security of the content.
Different sectors such as retail, government, finance, telecommunications, education, etc. use this platform. It comes with a monthly subscription of $99.
5. Perma.cc.
Perma.cc is an application dedicated to web archiving. It is built and maintained by the Harvard Law School Library.
With this application, you can create permanent records of your website.
Once links are created, you can remove them within 24 hours of creating them. If preservation fails, you can download PDFs or images.
It is one of the simplest and easiest to use archiving platforms that initially allows new users to create ten links.
New users can create these links on a trial basis. Once the trial period is over and if you want to continue adding links, you can use a paid subscription.
6. Archive.today.
Archive.today is a great archiving platform that takes care of even heavy websites.
It allows users to retrieve information even from previous versions of web pages.
Archive.today typically keeps records of two copies of the same website. The first copy is for live features with the links and URLs listed, and the second is a static image. You can easily take snapshots that you can use later if needed.
Archive.today uses Google and Yandex search engines. This means that when one search engine stops working, the second automatically works in its place. The use of this platform is completely free.
7. MirrorWeb.
MirrorWeb is a good choice for your digital archiving needs and a great alternative to the Wayback Machine
This platform offers on-demand recordings for websites, social media platforms, customer communication, and more.
It claims to offer reliable, robust, and secure data storage that is easier to retrieve when needed.
Thanks to MirrorWeb, you can program the capture of your website, your communication platform or your social media platform. It can capture content from heavy applications based on JavaScript or applications built using Angular, React, etc. Its 24/7 support gives you the peace of mind that its team will help you if you get stuck.
8. CachedView.
CachedView is a three-dimensional archiving website that is considered to be a great alternative to the Wayback Machine.
It uses multiple sources to archive websites. The program allows you to access the Google cache.
The Google Web Cache folder shows all of the files that it archives. CachedView combines the power of three technologies — Internet archiving, coral content, and Google caching — into a single platform. It is completely free to use.
9. ChangeTower.
ChangeTower is essentially a platform for archiving and detecting website changes.
It monitors changes to a website and sends alerts and notifications about them. You can choose a URL that you want to monitor.
This URL is set for archiving. ChangeTower crawlers take screenshots of the website at regular intervals and capture screenshots of the pages and source code.
You can also define alert criteria according to your needs. It also alerts you to any security threats.
10. Time Travel.
Time Travel is a kind of improved Internet archive product that uses the archive.today API to build this platform.
It offers the memory of several Internet archives, which are revised regularly. You can use the Internet archive of your choice and present it on the archive.today site.
Memento Time Travel Search the entire server to explore web pages. The elements that it reveals on a web page depend on the time of the request.
Its archiving services are available free of charge.
What is the purpose of the Wayback Machine?
There are a number of uses for the Wayback Machine. Here are some of its functions:
Analysis of your competitors
As a business, you certainly want to know how your competitors have progressed over time and achieved a good digital presence.
This may include looking at how they have improved the website compared to their original situation and what changes they have implemented over time.
The Wayback engine can help you look at all of these things.
RECOMMENDED READING: Use the Wayback Machine to analyze your competitors
Recovering lost data from a website
There may be times when you accidentally lose your website data and want to recover it later. The Wayback Machine allows you to access even deleted content. Even if you want to recover a deleted YouTube video, it can also help you do that.
View the content of a broken website
You may want to see content on a web page that is currently unavailable. The Wayback Machine has no effect on whether a web page is currently closed. It can show you multiple versions of the web page in question without any inconvenience.
Do I need to register to use the Wayback Machine?
No! Most of the content in the archives is in the public domain and can be streamed or downloaded by any user, without the need to register or log in.
However, by signing up for an Internet Archive account, you have access to a number of features, including:
- access to more than 1.3 million modern ebooks (copyrighted) that registered users can borrow.
- a personal web archive that allows you to add new sites to the Wayback Machine
- the possibility of freely uploading your own content to the Archives
- Access to the API for bulk downloading and software integration.
Create a free account on archive.org
FAQs
Why are images on a site broken or gray?
Broken images occur when images are not available on their servers. That usually means they didn't archive them.
You can find out if the image or link you're looking for is in the Wayback Machine by entering the image or link URL in the Wayback Machine search box. All the archives they have are searchable in the Wayback Machine.
The best way to see all the files they've archived from the site is: http://web.archive.org/*/www.yoursite.com/ *.
There is a difference of 3 to 10 hours between when a site is explored and when it appears in the Wayback Machine.
Why are some sites more difficult to archive than others?
If you look at their collection of archived sites, you'll find broken pages, missing graphics, and some sites that aren't archived at all.
Here are some of the possible causes:
- Robots.txt - A site's robots.txt document may have prevented a site from being explored.
- Javascript - Javascript elements are often difficult to archive, but especially if they generate links without having the full name on the page. Also, if the javascript needs to contact the origin server to work, it will fail when archived.
- Server-side image maps - Like any feature on the web, if it has to contact the origin server to function, it will fail when archived.
- Orphan pages - If there are no links to your pages, the robot will not find them (robots do not enter queries in search boxes).
In general, plain html is the easiest to archive.
Can I still find sites in the Wayback Machine if I only know the URL?
Yes, just type in a domain or URL as you did in the past and hit the “Browse History” button.
Why are some of the dots on the calendar page different colors?
The Wayback Machine colors the dots, and links, associated with individual web captures, or multiple web captures, for a given day.
- Blue means that the web server result code that the crawler obtained for the corresponding capture was a 2nn (good);
- Green means that the crawler has obtained a 3nn status code (redirection);
- Orange means that the crawler has obtained a 4nn status code (client error),
- Red means that the crawler saw a 5nn (server error).
Most of the time, you'll probably want to select the blue dots or links.
Summary.
The Wayback Machine is a great tool, but it has its limits.
If you're looking for more reliable alternatives that can easily capture changes to websites, try Stillio and VisualPing.
Both tools are offered as a free trial, allowing you to test them out and see which one best suits your needs.
