Wayback Machine Domain History

Wayback Machine Domain History turns the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine into a bulk domain-history report. For every domain you get the first and last archive date, years online, total captures, a year-by-year timeline, whether the site ever redirected or broke, its last working month, and optionally a list of its archived pages with snapshot links.

What does Wayback Machine Domain History do?

Paste a list of domains and get one clean summary row per domain: when it first appeared on the web, when it was last captured, how many captures exist, which years it was active, what share of archived months it was serving a working site, and whether it ever redirected elsewhere or returned errors. Switch on archived pages to also get the domain's historical URLs, each with its first capture date and a direct snapshot link.

On the Apify platform you also get API access, scheduling, integrations (Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, webhooks) and run monitoring, so domain research can plug straight into your workflow.

Why check a domain's history?

• Expired & aged domain buying: verify a domain's age and continuous history, and spot years where it redirected elsewhere or went dark, before you pay for it.
• SEO & link building: see how long a site has really been around, and recover old URLs to redirect after a migration.
• Content recovery: find pages that no longer exist on the live site, with snapshot links to their archived copies.
• Due diligence & fraud checks: a "10-year-old company" whose domain first appears last month is a red flag.
• Competitor research: see when competitors launched and how their site evolved.

How to look up domain history in bulk

1. Open the Actor and go to the Input tab.
2. Paste domains into Domains, one per line (URLs work too).
3. Keep Include archived pages on to also list historical URLs, and set how many per domain.
4. Click Start.
5. Open the Output tab and switch between the Domain history and Archived pages views, or download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Input

Field	Type	Description
domains	array	Domains or website URLs. Required.
includeArchivedUrls	boolean	Also list archived pages. Default true.
maxArchivedUrls	integer	Max archived pages per domain. Default 100.

{
    "domains": ["apify.com", "example.com"],
    "includeArchivedUrls": true,
    "maxArchivedUrls": 100
}

Output

Two row types, marked by entityType. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Domain summary

{
    "entityType": "domain",
    "domain": "apify.com",
    "hasArchive": true,
    "firstSnapshotAt": "2007-05-31T10:15:38+00:00",
    "firstSnapshotUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20070531101538/apify.com",
    "lastSnapshotAt": "2026-09-22T12:48:48+00:00",
    "lastSnapshotUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260922124848/apify.com",
    "lastWorkingMonth": "2026-09",
    "totalCaptures": 1557,
    "monthsArchived": 126,
    "yearsArchived": [2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026],
    "archiveSpanYears": 20,
    "capturesByYear": { "2007": 3, "2008": 1, "2011": 3, "…": "…", "2026": 112 },
    "workingMonthsPercent": 98.4,
    "wasRedirected": true,
    "hadErrors": false,
    "error": null
}

Archived page

{
    "entityType": "archived_url",
    "domain": "apify.com",
    "url": "https://apify.com/0code0/yellowpages-in-categories",
    "firstCapturedAt": "2024-05-23T00:16:16+00:00",
    "statusCode": 200,
    "mimeType": "text/html",
    "snapshotUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240523001616/https://apify.com/0code0/yellowpages-in-categories"
}

Output data fields

Field	Description
firstSnapshotAt / lastSnapshotAt	First and most recent archive capture, with snapshot links.
lastWorkingMonth	Latest month in which the archived site returned a working page.
totalCaptures / monthsArchived	Total number of captures, and how many distinct months have at least one.
yearsArchived / archiveSpanYears / capturesByYear	Which years the domain was captured, the span, and captures per year.
workingMonthsPercent	Share of archived months where the site was working (not redirecting or erroring).
wasRedirected / hadErrors	Whether the domain ever redirected elsewhere or returned errors in the archive.
url / firstCapturedAt / snapshotUrl	For archived pages: the page, when it was first captured, and a link to that copy.
error	Why something couldn't be loaded, otherwise null.

How many results will I get?

One summary row per domain, plus up to Max archived pages per domain page rows when Include archived pages is on. 10 domains with 100 pages each give up to 1,010 rows. Turn the page list off to get exactly one row per domain.

Tips

• Fastest runs: turn off Include archived pages. Summaries take about a second per domain; page lists take longer for very large sites.
• Buying an aged domain? Look at yearsArchived for gaps, and at wasRedirected / workingMonthsPercent. Long redirect periods often mean the domain was dropped and reused.
• Migration planning: list archived pages, then check which old URLs still need redirects.

FAQ

Why is hasArchive false for my domain? The archive has never captured it. This is common for new, private or very small sites.

Why does the page list only show some pages? For each domain the Actor samples archived pages from across the whole site, up to your limit, and includes only working HTML pages. Very large sites have far more archived pages than one run lists; raise Max archived pages per domain for more.

Is this legal? Yes. The Actor only reads publicly available archive records.

Found a bug or need a custom feature? Open an issue in the Issues tab. Custom solutions are available on request.