How Website Restoration Works
Understanding how we recover websites from the Wayback Machine
By WaybackRevive LLC – A US-registered company specializing in website restoration services.
What is the Wayback Machine?
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web, created by the Internet Archive. Since 1996, it has been archiving websites and currently contains over 800 billion web pages.
When a website goes offline—whether due to expiration, deletion, or hosting issues—the Wayback Machine often has historical snapshots that can be used to recover content, design, and structure.
💡 Key Insight
Not all websites can be restored. The success depends on how frequently the site was archived, what content was captured, and how complex the original site was. Our tools help you determine this before you invest time or money.
How Our Tools Work
Wayback Snapshot Checker
First, we query the Wayback Machine's CDX API to check if your domain has any archived snapshots. This tells us:
- When the first and last snapshots were taken
- Total number of snapshots available
- Archive density (how frequently it was captured)
- Whether restoration is even possible
Snapshot Explorer
Browse through archived versions visually. This helps you:
- See what your site looked like at different points in time
- Choose the best version to restore from
- Identify which pages were archived
- Preview the content before restoration
Restore Feasibility Score
Our proprietary algorithm analyzes multiple factors to give you a restoration score from 0-100:
High snapshot count, complete coverage
Some content recoverable, gaps exist
Minimal snapshots, major gaps
Insufficient data for restoration
Content Coverage Analysis
Understand exactly what can be recovered:
- Estimated number of pages
- Blog posts vs static pages
- Images and media availability
- Missing content percentage
What Can (and Can't) Be Restored
Usually Restorable
- ✓ HTML content and text
- ✓ Blog posts and articles
- ✓ Static pages (About, Contact, etc.)
- ✓ CSS styling (with adjustments)
- ✓ Images hosted on the domain
- ✓ Basic JavaScript functionality
- ✓ Navigation and site structure
- ✓ Meta data and SEO elements
Usually NOT Restorable
- ✗ User accounts and login data
- ✗ Database content (products, orders)
- ✗ E-commerce functionality
- ✗ Server-side scripts (PHP, Python logic)
- ✗ Third-party integrations
- ✗ Videos (usually external)
- ✗ Dynamic content (comments, forums)
- ✗ Password-protected pages