Recover a deleted web page
Two distinct needs meet here: consulting the past, and preserving the present. The second is most often neglected, though it is the more urgent: a page found today may vanish tomorrow, and an unarchived finding no longer exists.
The tools, in order
- 01
Site snapshots since 1996, browsable by date
Web archive providing historical snapshots of websites captured over time.
- 02Archive.phfree
Archives a page on demand and produces a frozen snapshot
Web archiving service that creates permanent snapshots of web pages. Useful for preserving evidence, accessing deleted content and bypassing paywalls for research purposes.
- 03Perma.ccfreemium
Permanent archiving with a citable link, run by Harvard
Harvard-run permanent archiving service producing citable links that survive link rot.
- 04UK Web Archivefree
Covers the British web specifically since 2004
British Library archive of UK websites, preserving material since 2004 with full-text search.
The pitfall to avoid
Archive when you find, not at the end of the investigation. And note the date: an archive without a timestamp has far less evidential value.
🧭 The full plan
The copilot orders every step from your starting point, with pre-filled queries.
📖 The guides
Detailed methods by investigation type.