TIL I was archiving dead links wrong for 5 years, a 403 error tipped me off

I always just pasted URLs into the Wayback Machine and called it a day, but last week I found a link that showed a 403 in the archive yet worked fine live. Turns out I never checked the capture timestamps or redirect chains, so half my 'saved' cursed links were actually broken snapshots. Has anyone else had archive hits that looked legit but were totally useless?

2 comments

2 Comments

brian3039d ago

Honestly, is a broken archive link not just history being honest?

hayden_rodriguez9d ago

Watch how everything online slowly falls apart, same as old photos fading in a shoe box.