The world's biggest web archive is now online - and it's free

I just checked out this site.... It's pretty amazing.

Go to http://web.archive.org/

There, you can search out past versions of your favorite web pages.... The archive apparently goes all the way back to 1996.

It won't have every single update of every single web page, but they do update the database every two months or so, and it's free. You can look up the back issues of magazines, read sites which have since disappeared, and so on.... I can see myself spending hours on this site! (Please post it here if you find something interesting from the past....)

- Dien Rice

This might be fun especially for those of us who have been online a while.... :)

For example, here are some archives to posts at Bill Myers' old forum from 1998:

http://web.archive.org/web/19980224160129/bmyers.com/ipub/index.html

If you scroll down, you'll see posts by great entrepreneurs like Bill Myers, Gordon Alexander, Michael Ross, Don Alm, Jonathan Mizel, and others.... Some stuff is outdated today, but other advice is just as relevant today as it was in 1998.... :)

- Dien Rice

Very great articles not available any more:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010202150800/salesdoctors.com/misc/index.htm

On another side, what about the copyright problems? For example, I saw some archives of my now defunct sites that I DO NOT WANT to be available any more to the public.

Anyway, I don't believe that the archive site will be available for a long time as the bandwith cost alone will kill them!

Oliver Peters

did it die already...all i get is internal server
error...

> I just checked out this site.... It's pretty
> amazing.

> Go to http://web.archive.org/ There, you
> can search out past versions of your
> favorite web pages.... The archive
> apparently goes all the way back to 1996.

> It won't have every single update of every
> single web page, but they do update the
> database every two months or so, and it's
> free. You can look up the back issues of
> magazines, read sites which have since
> disappeared, and so on.... I can see myself
> spending hours on this site! (Please post it
> here if you find something interesting from
> the past....)

> - Dien Rice

> did it die already...all i get is internal
> server
> error...

Hi Joe,

I'm getting an internal server error now too... It was working when I posted my earlier posts about it. It must be a glitch, I hope it's back soon....

- Dien

Hi Oliver,

> On another side, what about the copyright
> problems? For example, I saw some archives
> of my now defunct sites that I DO NOT WANT
> to be available any more to the public.

Yes, I agree.... It seems there could be some copyright problems here. After all, you still own the copyright on your own web sites....

> Anyway, I don't believe that the archive
> site will be available for a long time as
> the bandwith cost alone will kill them!

Maybe this is what we're seeing now... The archive seems to be down now (as I'm posting), but hopefully it will be back soon. :)

- Dien