Wayback Machine Snapshot Finder: Archive Dates, URLs & First/Last Seen

Use this to find Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshots for any list of URLs or domains through the public CDX API (no login). For each snapshot you get timestamp, human-readable date, original URL, archive URL, HTTP status, MIME type, content digest, length, and first/last-seen flags. Optional closest-to-date, status filter, and collapse-by-digest uniqueness. $0.001 per snapshot.

• 📅 First and last seen: earliest and latest capture dates per URL, with isFirst / isLast flags
• 🎯 Closest to a date: ask for the snapshots nearest a timestamp (great for "what did this page look like around …")
• 🔁 Unique content: collapse by digest so you only pay for distinct page versions
• 🌐 Bulk URLs or whole domains: exact, prefix or domain match via the official CDX API
• 💸 $0.001 per snapshot; empty and failed lookups are free

Who it's for

• Researchers and journalists: when a page first appeared, how it changed over time
• SEO and marketers: competitor landing-page history and redirect archaeology
• Legal / compliance / brand protection: inventory of archived URLs for a hold or takedown
• OSINT and security teams: historical hosts, paths and status codes
• AI agents: one-line agentSummary per snapshot plus a SUMMARY takeaway

How to use it

1. Click Try for free.
2. Paste URLs and/or Domains.
3. Optionally set from/to, status filter, closest to, or turn off digest collapse.
4. Click Start. Download SNAPSHOTS_XLSX or SNAPSHOTS_CSV from Storage → Key-value store, or read the dataset via API.

Input example

{
  "urls": ["example.com", "https://example.com/about"],
  "matchType": "domain",
  "from": "2015",
  "filterStatus": "200",
  "collapseDigest": true,
  "includeFirstLast": true,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Task examples

• When did this landing page first appear? {"urls": ["competitor.com/pricing"], "matchType": "exact", "includeFirstLast": true, "maxResults": 20}
• Closest snapshot to a date: {"urls": ["example.com"], "closestTo": "2020-01-01", "filterStatus": "200", "maxResults": 5}
• Unique page versions since 2018: {"domains": ["example.com"], "from": "2018", "collapseDigest": true, "filterStatus": "200"}
• Legal hold URL inventory: {"urls": [...list...], "matchType": "exact", "includeFirstLast": true}
• Whole-domain history sample: {"domains": ["example.com"], "matchType": "domain", "maxResultsPerUrl": 100, "maxResults": 200}

Output example

{
  "url": "example.com",
  "timestamp": "20020120142510",
  "timestampReadable": "2002-01-20 14:25",
  "originalUrl": "http://example.com:80/",
  "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20020120142510/http://example.com:80/",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "mimeType": "text/html",
  "digest": "HT2DYGA5UKZCPBSFVCV3JOBXGW2G5UUA",
  "length": 1792,
  "isFirst": true,
  "isLast": false,
  "firstSeen": "2002-01-20 14:25",
  "lastSeen": "2026-10-01",
  "agentSummary": "example.com snapshot 2002-01-20 14:25; HTTP 200; text/html; FIRST seen; archive https://web.archive.org/web/20020120142510/http://example.com:80/."
}

For AI agents

Use this Actor to answer "when was this URL archived, what are the archive links, and what are the first and last captures?" for one or many URLs. Minimal input: {"urls": ["example.com"]}. Read agentSummary per snapshot or the SUMMARY takeaway (counts, first/last per URL). Empty CDX results and failed lookups are not charged.

• MCP: add this Actor to Claude, Cursor, Copilot or any MCP client through the Apify MCP server: https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=pandadad0214/wayback-snapshot-finder, then ask in plain English.
• API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/pandadad0214~wayback-snapshot-finder/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN with the input JSON.
• Every row has an agentSummary line, and the SUMMARY record has a one-line takeaway plus nextSteps, so an agent can answer without parsing every field.
• Schedule it in Apify and connect Zapier, Make, n8n, Slack, Google Sheets or a webhook to the dataset.

Pricing

$0.001 per snapshot returned (pay per event) plus Apify's tiny Actor-start fee of $0.00005. 1,000 snapshots cost $1. Runs that return nothing cost nothing, and failed CDX calls are never charged. Set Maximum results or Apify's maximum charge per run to cap any run; the Actor stops at your limit.

Apify paid-plan discounts: Bronze members pay 10% less, Silver 20% less and Gold 30% less per snapshot; the discount applies automatically. Apify's free plan includes monthly credit to try it.

FAQ

Do I need an Internet Archive account? No. The Actor uses the public CDX search API.

What is collapse by digest? Wayback stores many captures of the same bytes. Collapsing by digest keeps one row per unique content so you do not pay for duplicates.

Why are some statuses missing or odd? CDX records whatever the crawler stored (200, 301, 404, warc/revisit, etc.). Use HTTP status filter = 200 for successful HTML pages.

Does this download the archived page body? No. It returns snapshot metadata and archive URLs. Open archiveUrl to view the capture.

Do empty results cost money? No. Nothing matched = nothing charged.

More Panda Federation tools

• Website Change Monitor: get told when a live page changes
• Bulk Domain WHOIS & Expiry Checker: registrar and expiry for the same domains
• Company Website Enricher: domain to company profile with contacts and tech
• Full catalog and MCP server: Panda Federation Tools on GitHub

Built by Panda Federation. Questions or a custom version? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.

Changelog

• 2026-11-06: First release: Internet Archive CDX snapshot search for URLs/domains, exact/domain/prefix match, from/to and status filters, collapse-by-digest, closest-to-date, first/last seen flags, Excel and CSV, agentSummary and SUMMARY takeaway, pay-per-event pricing with Bronze/Silver/Gold discounts.