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Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

hawaiigentech.com

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Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#121

Post by marcus_holmes »

outsomnia wrote: post #16

This is a bad idea... In the worst case one might write a cool article and get two hits, one noticing it exists, and the other from the archive service. After that it might go viral, but the author may have given up by then. The author is losing out on inbound links so google thinks their site is irrelevant and gives it a bad pagerank. All you need to do is get archive.org to take a copy at the time, you can always a…

I totally agree.

I guess the answer is "don't mess with your old site", but that's also impractical.

And I'm sorry, but if it's my site, then it's my site. I reserve the right to mess about with it endlessly. Including taking down a post for whatever reason I like.

I'm sorry if that conflicts with someone else's need for everything to stay the same but it's my site.

Also, if you're linking to my article, and I decide to remove said article, then surely that's my right? It's my article. Your right to not have a dead link doesn't supercede my right to withdraw a previous publication, surely?

Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#122

Post by jrochkind1 »

bartread wrote: post #21

I'm not sure I'm a fan of this because it just turns WayBackMachine into another content silo. It's called the world wide web for a reason, and this isn't helping. I can see it for corporate sites where they change content, remove pages, and break links without a moment's consideration. But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine. Apart from any…

The International Internet Preservation Consortium is attempting a technological solution that gives you the best of both worlds in a flexible way, and is meant to be extended to support multiple archival preservation content providers.

https://robustlinks.mementoweb.org/about/

(although nothing else like the IA Wayback machine exists presently, and I'm not sure what would make someone else try to 'compete' when IA is doing so well, which is a problem, but refusing to use the IA doesn't solve it!)

Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#124

Post by lizardmancan »

The real problem here is that url's provide only single method to obtain content. Combined with the registers rent seeking scheme we are left with flimsy technology.

I implemented this one time for images when a bunch of free image hosts i was using failed:

http://example.com/img.jpg" data-x="0" onerror="a=[ 'http://example.com/img.jpg', 'http:/example.com/img2.jpg', 'http://example.com/michael-faraday.jpg', this.dataset.uri]; this.src=a[this.dataset.x++]" data-uri='data:image/gif,GIF89a%1...'>

Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#125

Post by luckylion »

ethanwillis wrote: post #20
outsomnia wrote: post #16

This is a bad idea... In the worst case one might write a cool article and get two hits, one noticing it exists, and the other from the archive service. After that it might go viral, but the author may have given up by then. The author is losing out on inbound links so google thinks their site is irrelevant and gives it a bad pagerank. All you need to do is get archive.org to take a copy at the time, you can always a…

Google shouldn't be the center of the Web. They could also easily determine where the archive link is pointing to and not penalize. But I guess making sure we align with Google's incentives is more important than just using the Web.

> But I guess making sure we align with Google's incentives is more important than just using the Web.

It's not about Google's incentives. It's about directing the traffic where it should go. Google is just the means to do so.

Build an alternative, I'm sure nobody wants Google to be the number one way of finding content, it's just that they are, so pretending they're not and doing something that will hurt your ability to have your content found isn't productive.

Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#127

Post by II2II »

riffraff wrote: post #62
mcv wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be nice if there's an automatic way to have a link revert to the Wayback Machine once the original link stops working. I can't think of an easy way to do that, though.

wikipedia just does "$some-link-here (Archived $archived-version-link)", and it works pretty well, imo.

Agreed, and it shouldn't be too much of a burden to use since the author was quite clear about it being for reference materials. The idea isn't all that different from referring to specific print editions.

Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#128

Post by romwell »

dredmorbius wrote: post #25
romwell wrote: post #3

Good idea, by why not both (i.e. link to a webpage, and to the Archive)? Linking to Archive only makes Archive a single point of failure.

The WBM link includes the canonical source clearly within the URL.

Yeah, and the non-technical users will surely understand that what they need to do when the link doesn't work is:

1. Recognize that it's an Archive.org URL

2. Understand that the link references an archived page whose URL is "clearly" referenced as a parameter

3. Edit the URL (especially pleasant on a cell phone) correctly and try loading that

If you expect the user to be able to go through all this trouble if the Archive is down, you can also expect them to look up the page on the Archive if the link does not load.

But better yet, one shouldn't expect either.

Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content

#130

Post by silicon2401 »

bartread wrote: post #21

I'm not sure I'm a fan of this because it just turns WayBackMachine into another content silo. It's called the world wide web for a reason, and this isn't helping. I can see it for corporate sites where they change content, remove pages, and break links without a moment's consideration. But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine. Apart from any…

> But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine.

That would make sense if users were archiving your site for your benefit, but they're probably not. If I were to archive your site, it's because I want my own bookmarks/backups/etc to be more reliable than just a link, not because I'm looking out to preserve your website. Otherwise, I'm just gambling that you won't one day change your content, design, etc on a whim.

Hence I'm in a similar boat as the blog author. If there's a webpage I really like, I download and archive it myself. If it's not worth going through that process, I use the wayback machine. If it's not worth that, then I just keep a bookmark.

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