Is Wayback Machine a Reliable Tool? Here Are a Few Alternatives

As we are talking over here on the web, there are almost half of the world’s population who is also in contact with the world wide web in some way or the other. Each one of us has our data stored digitally, especially businesses who have data that is worth over a billion or millions maybe.Wayback machine alternatives

This itself speaks the importance of web archiving in today’s gen. In companies, for personal use and even to add authenticity to your work (in case, your website shuts down), archiving tools play a huge role.

In one study published in the journal Science, 13% of Internet references in scholarly articles were inactive after only 27 months. It’s crucial to pick the best tool available which is user-friendly, reliable, stores huge data and can easily be retrieved all at the same time.

One of the famous names, when we talk about archiving data, is Wayback Machine. Wayback machine, since its inception in 2001 has stored thousands of terabytes of data. It doesn’t capture content but extracts content from where it is stored on a server, often HTML files.

It captures hyperlinks to other content in the same domain, so often it is unable to capture all images, software codes, and other data. The web content is extracted using a web-crawling or spidering software which follows certain rules to retrieve data. Some web pages allow crawling while others don’t. Where a page domain doesn’t permit, the Wayback machine records “no crawl” as its snapshot in its archives. Such data can’t be extracted for future purposes and thus cannot always be trusted!

So now what would you do? How would you archive all your important data available on the world wide web? Fret not. Here are a few alternatives:

Alternatives of Wayback Machine

1. Memento

Memento is very useful as it allows you to visit a website which is not even available anymore. It gives a framework by giving you the desired URL of that website. It aims at making web archiving content more readily discoverable. It is one of the most differentiated tools and attracts a huge userbase.

2. Stillio

Stillio is an archiving tool which captures snapshots of web pages at regular intervals. The snapshots are easy to view, and the data is easily accessible. It is a reliable and efficient automated archiving tool. It is a better alternative than Wayback as it can also help you check trends and SEO rankings, combined with a lot of other attractive features.

3. ScreenShots

ScreenShots is another archiving tool whose operations system is also built on taking screenshots and saving it on the database. Its interface allows proper zooming for your convenience. It also updates whenever sites change which differentiates it from Wayback. All the details you need are provided in the snap and other details like code and destination become inaccessible.

4. Archive.today

Archive.today is a time capsule for web pages. It not only takes screenshots but also saves a text and graphical copy of the page for better accuracy. Moreover, it also provides a shot and reliable link to an unalterable record of any webpage. Saved pictures don’t have any active elements so you are free of any pop-ups and malware. It strives to make archiving data a better experience for you.

5. Webcite

Webcite, a former member of Internet Preservation Consortium, is an on-demand archiving system for web references which are used by writers and editors of all kinds to ensure that their material remains available. It is free of cost regardless of the publisher of such work. It is simple to use and enables the references of articles published to be accessible for years.

6. Internet Frog

Internet Frog has around 10 years of historical data and shows changes in the data from time to time. It is easy to use and makes archiving simpler by making it user-friendly.

7. Blit

Blit, an automated archiving tool helps you to access data without manual work. It simply schedules screenshots to your inbox. The efficiency and speed are what makes Blit stand out from the rest of the tools.

8. Phaidra

Phaidra is a long-term archiving tool. It gives educational, research and management staff, the possibility to publish, to store digital data and resources and to archive them indefinitely. It archives data for an unlimited period and is much more efficient than Wayback.

Out of all the alternatives mentioned above, Stillio would be your best pick because of its automated system to take screenshots at regular intervals along with a whole gamut of services that it has in store for you. Wayback has reigned the crown for a long period, but time is changing, technology is evolving – so why would you settle for less, when you have the best?

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