WBM: the Wayback Machine

What is it?

Why use it?

For which websites?

Any problems with it?

What is the Wayback Machine?

The Internet Archive has been taking snapshots of web pages on the World Wide Web since 1996. The Wayback Machine is a tool that allows users to surf those archived versions of web pages. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL (i.e. a website address), select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of that web site. As of the end of 2006, the Internet Archive had archived 85 billion web pages.

Why does the Hot Peach Pages use the Wayback Machine?

Unfortunately, sites we link to sometimes disappear from the internet or are suddenly forbidden, usually for reasons unknown to us. In most cases, in order to preserve the valuable information and resources that were available from such sites, we link to an archived version of the site on the Wayback Machine, hoping that at least some of the archived information is still useful. If you find a link on the Hot Peach Pages to a Wayback Machine archived version of a site that has no currently useful information, or if the website is back on the internet, please email us to let us know.

For which websites is the HPP currently using the Wayback Machine?

To see a list of webpages the HPP is currently using the Wayback Machine for, click here. (NOTE: The list is for the purposes of the HPP webmom. Not all web pages for which we are using the Wayback Machine are on the list.)

Are there any problems with using the Wayback Machine?

If a page from the Wayback Machine displays ???? or or or Yíäýñíèé or other mojibake:
1. in your browser, go to View>Page Source (or just Source) and search for charset=
2. take note of the setting after charset= (e.g. charset=windows-1251)
3. close the Page Source window, then go to View>Character Encoding (or just Encoding) and
4. choose the setting you just saw after charset= (e.g. Cyrillic (Windows-1251).
The Internet Archive doesn't archive all images, so some may be broken.
Pages from the Wayback Machine usually load very, very slowly.
The Wayback Machine reports much higher 'failed connection' and 'unable to find server' rates than average.

¹We are not responsible for the quality of the sites listed. They are provided as a reference only.