Wayback Machine Scraper

Wayback Machine snapshots for any URL or domain at $2 per 1,000, with no 10,000-row cap. Find the capture closest to a date, get one row that says when a site first and last appeared, or download the archived text when you ask for it.

Who it is for

• SEO and migration teams recovering old URLs, titles and redirects after a site move.
• Researchers, lawyers and journalists who need to show what a page said on a given date.
• Competitor monitoring: a daily schedule that returns only the captures added since the previous run.
• AI agents that need a page as it was, not as it is now.

What you get

• Snapshot time, original URL, HTTP status, MIME type, content digest, and a direct archive link.
• Rows past the usual 10,000 capture cap. A wide query that times out is split by year and continued.
• The capture closest to a date, for "what did this page say then?".
• One domain-history row: first and last capture, years with snapshots, missing years, and the longest gap.
• Archived text, Markdown, or HTML only when you turn on Fetch archived page content. The archive toolbar is removed and each downloaded page is charged on its own.

Sample output

A real row from the daily check on example.com:

{
  "type": "snapshot",
  "target": "https://example.com",
  "originalUrl": "http://example.com:80/",
  "timestamp": "20020120142510",
  "archivedAt": "2002-01-20T14:25:10Z",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "mimeType": "text/html",
  "digest": "HT2DYGA5UKZCPBSFVCV3JOBXGW2G5UUA",
  "changed": false,
  "snapshotUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20020120142510/http://example.com:80/"
}

A URL with no captures returns one empty row and the run still succeeds. That row is free. A domain history is a domain-summary row.

How to use

1. Paste one URL. Leave the defaults: exact match, one capture per year, 10 rows.
2. For a legal date, switch the mode to closest snapshot and set the date, for example 2015-01-01.
3. For a daily schedule, turn on "Only snapshots since the previous run". Each run then asks only for captures after the last one this Actor already returned for the same targets and filters.

{
  "targets": ["https://example.com"],
  "maxSnapshots": 10
}

Input

Field	Default	What it does
Mode	List snapshots	List, closest date, or one history row per domain.
URLs or domains	https://example.com	One URL or domain per line.
Match type	Exact URL	Exact, prefix, host, or domain including subdomains.
Collapse duplicates	One per year	Digest keeps a row only when the content hash changes.
Maximum snapshots	10	No hidden 10,000 cap. Raise it when you need the full history.
Fetch archived page content	off	Downloads the page. Charged separately.
Only snapshots since the previous run	off	Use this on a schedule.

Pricing

You pay for rows that come back, not for an empty site.

You get	You pay
10 snapshots	$0.02
Those 10 with archived text	$0.07
1 domain history	$0.005
1,000 snapshots	$2.00

Event	Free	Bronze	Silver	Gold, Platinum, Diamond
Snapshot	$0.002	$0.0018	$0.0016	$0.0014
Archived page	$0.005	$0.0045	$0.004	$0.0035
Domain history	$0.005	$0.0045	$0.004	$0.0035

A run stops when it hits the maximum charge you set, and the rows already delivered stay in the dataset.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

The input is a short list of URLs and a mode. The dataset is one record per snapshot, or one domain summary. Call martinvarelaa/wayback-machine-snapshots from the Apify MCP server. Leave page download off unless the agent needs the words on the page. Turn on "since the previous run" when the agent checks the same URL every day.

Use via API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/martinvarelaa~wayback-machine-snapshots/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"targets":["https://example.com"],"maxSnapshots":10}'

FAQ

Why is the default run so small?

The default is one URL, ten yearly captures, and no page download, so a first try costs about $0.02. Domain-wide history and page downloads are opt-in because they are slower.

Is there a 10,000 snapshot limit?

No. Wide queries are split by year and continued, so you can raise Maximum snapshots to the full history of a domain.

What happens if a site was never archived?

You get one free empty row and a successful run. If archive.org answers for none of your targets, the run fails, so you never get a silent empty success.

Does it return personal data?

This Actor does not add emails, phone numbers, or account names. Usernames and passwords embedded in an old URL are removed before the row is saved. Archived pages keep their original copyright.

Other actors

• Sitemap URL Extractor lists every URL in a sitemap.xml file.
• SEO Page Audit scores pages and checks sitemap URLs and AI-crawler rules.
• Clutch.co Scraper builds agency lead lists with rates, team size and published contacts.

Changelog

• 0.1: snapshots with no 10,000-row cap, closest capture to a date, one-row domain history, optional archived text and incremental daily runs.