Wayback Machine Scraper: archived page history & text

Pull the Internet Archive's capture history for any URL and the text of each archived version: when it was captured, status, content digest, title and clean page text. One snapshot per day/month/year or every capture, date range, newest first. Track how a competitor's pricing page, a product listing, a news article or a whole site changed over the years; recover content from pages that are gone.

What you can use it for

• Pricing and positioning history of competitors: one snapshot per month of their pricing page as clean text
• Recover deleted pages, old product listings, press releases or policy texts
• Research and journalism: how a statement, a claim or a term of service changed over time
• SEO: see what a domain hosted before you buy it; find old URLs to redirect

Why this one

• Uses the Internet Archive's public CDX index: exact capture timestamps, HTTP status, MIME type and content digest (spot unchanged copies at a glance)
• One capture per day/month/year or every capture, date range, newest first
• Fetches the archived page without the Wayback toolbar and returns clean readable text and the title; raw links included
• Pay only for results: $0.80 per 1,000 snapshots. No subscription.

Input

• URLs (urls): Pages to look up in the Wayback Machine. A trailing * lists every captured URL under a path (e.g. example.com/blog/*).
• From (YYYY-MM-DD) (from)
• To (YYYY-MM-DD) (to)
• One snapshot per (collapse) Default: "month".
• Newest first (newestFirst) Default: true.
• Max snapshots per URL (maxSnapshotsPerUrl) Default: 50.
• Fetch the archived page text (fetchContent): Off = just the list of captures (fast). Default: true.
• Max text characters per snapshot (maxTextChars) Default: 20000.
• Only successful captures (HTTP 200) (onlyStatus200) Default: true.
• Max snapshots total (maxResults) Default: 10000.

Output

One row per snapshot in the dataset (JSON, CSV, Excel, or through the API). Sample:

[
 {
  "inputUrl": "apify.com/pricing",
  "originalUrl": "https://apify.com/pricing",
  "timestamp": "20261016001017",
  "capturedAt": "2026-10-16T00:10:17+00:00",
  "snapshotUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20261016001017/https://apify.com/pricing",
  "rawUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20261016001017id_/https://apify.com/pricing",
  "statusCode": "200",
  "mimeType": "text/html",
  "digest": "73WMRZT2IMYSBDAE57XHAVUCOLSVYQUY",
  "length": 66057,
  "title": null,
  "text": null,
  "fetchError": "HTTP 500"
 },
 {
  "inputUrl": "apify.com/pricing",
  "originalUrl": "https://apify.com/pricing",
  "timestamp": "20251216133154",
  "capturedAt": "2025-12-16T13:31:54+00:00",
  "snapshotUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251216133154/https://apify.com/pricing",
  "rawUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251216133154id_/https://apify.com/pricing",
  "statusCode": "200",
  "mimeType": "text/html",
  "digest": "STLLDYULBJDT2ZERWG2M56YFMRMFDDRX",
  "length": 50753,
  "title": null,
  "text": null,
  "fetchError": "HTTP 500"
 }
]

Tips

• Wildcards work: example.com/blog/* lists every captured URL under that path (turn fetchContent off for a fast inventory).
• The Internet Archive has short outages; the tool waits and retries, and reports fetchError per snapshot instead of failing the run.

Integrations and API

Run it on a schedule, trigger it from the API or a webhook, and send results to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, Slack, a database or your own code with the platform's standard integrations.

Data and fair use

This tool reads only public sources (official APIs, public feeds or pages the publisher makes available to everyone) and respects robots.txt and rate limits. You are responsible for using the data in line with the source's terms and applicable law.

How much it costs

You pay per result (pay-per-event), nothing per month and nothing when a run returns nothing. The price is $0.80 per 1,000 snapshots on the Free plan, with automatic discounts on paid plans (Bronze −5%, Silver −10%, Gold −15%, Platinum −20%).

Worked examples:

• 100 snapshots → $0.08
• 1,000 snapshots → $0.80
• 10,000 snapshots → $8.00

Platform usage (compute, storage) is included in the price: the actor runs at a small memory setting by default, so a typical run of 1,000 snapshots finishes in well under a minute.

FAQ

Does it respect archive.org?

Yes, requests are paced and use the public CDX and Wayback APIs the Internet Archive documents for exactly this purpose.

Why are some fields empty?

A field is null when the source does not publish it for that row. The output keeps every column so your spreadsheet or integration always sees the same shape.

Can I run it on a schedule?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules (daily, hourly, cron) and connect the run to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, a webhook or the API. Each run writes a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV or Excel.

Is there a free trial?

The Apify Free plan includes $5 of monthly platform credit, enough to try this actor on a few hundred results at no cost. There is no subscription for the actor itself.

Can an AI agent use this?

Yes. The actor is available through Apify's MCP server and the API, so LLM agents (Claude, ChatGPT, LangChain, CrewAI) can call it as a tool with the same input.

What happens if something fails?

Runs log every skipped item with a reason. If the source is down, the actor stops cleanly and you are only charged for the results it returned.

Changelog

• 2026-10-18 — Lower price with Bronze/Silver/Gold discounts; smaller default memory (cheaper runs); clean table view of results; FAQ and cost examples; input defaults reviewed.

Support

Found a problem or need a field added? Open an issue on the Issues tab; it is read and answered.