Advanced URL locator hints and tips

There are a number of easy URL-based queries for conducting Advanced Searches on the documents in the Wayback Machine. To conduct these Advanced Searches, simply enter the following URLs in your browser's location or address bar.

Retrieving the most recently archived copy of a specific URL

document.write("http://" + document.location.hostname + "/http://www.redfishcountry.com") http://web.archive.org/http://www.redfishcountry.com

where "http://www.redfishcountry.com" is the target URL. This query returns the most recently archived version of that target URL in the archive.

Retrieving an archived copy of a specific URL from given date

document.write("http://" + document.location.hostname + "/20011007203917/http://www.redfishtour.com") http://web.archive.org/20011007203917/http://www.redfishtour.com

This returns a specific document whose URL matches the target URL and whose archive date most closely matches the date specified in the format YYYYMMDDhhmmss. In the example above, this returns www.redfishtour.com archived on October 7, 2001 at 8:39pm and 17 seconds.

The date need not be specified to the second. Using a truncated date will return an archived page that most closely matches the average value of the date specified.

Example of truncating to the Year
document.write("http://" + document.location.hostname + "/2000/http://www.redfishtour.com") http://web.archive.org/2000/http://www.redfishtour.com

This returns the document whose URL exactly matches http://www.redfishtour.com and whose archival date most closely matches July 1, 2000 (July 1 is the middle of the year or the "average value" of the year 2000).

Example of truncating to the Year and Month
document.write("http://" + document.location.hostname + "/200010/http://www.redfishtour.com") http://web.archive.org/200010/http://www.redfishtour.com

This returns the document whose URL exactly matches http://www.redfishtour.com and whose archival date most closely matches October 15, 2000 (the 15th is the middle of October or the "average value" of October, 2000).

Searching for all copies of a specific URL archived in a given time period

document.write("http://" + document.location.hostname + "/200109*/http://www.redfishtour.com") http://web.archive.org/200109*/http://www.redfishtour.com

This returns all copies of a specific target URL (e.g. http://www.redfishtour.com) which were archived beginning with the date specified in the format YYYYMMDDhhmmss. In the example above, this returns a list of all all archived versions of www.redfishtour.com archived in September 2001.

Searching for all URLs for a site archived in a given time period

document.write("http://" + document.location.hostname + "/200109*/http://www.redfishtour.com*") http://web.archive.org/200109*/http://www.redfishtour.com*

This returns all URLs that begin with http://www.redfishtour.com which were archived in September 2001.