Sphinn - 3 New Uses for Archive.org

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3 New Uses for Archive.org

Went Hot: July 27, 2008 - 10:02 pm
Posted By: YoungMaster 346 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://seoroi.com)
Category: SEM

3 nice tips from Gabriel Goldenberg on how you can make use of Archive.org

22 Comments

Who Desphunn This (1)

Comments

from Gab 345 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Thanks for sphinning this Young Master :).

from YoungMaster 345 days ago #

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My pleasure Gab, always enjoy your stuff.

from SlightlyShadySEO 343 days ago #

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Great stuff, as always :-)

from Gab 343 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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So everyone here knows the best ways to use Archive.org?

from planetc1 343 days ago #

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Since your presentation at SMX advanced I've been using archive.org to refer to historical looks at old pages of sites I once had. Food for fun blog posts. :)

from Gab 343 days ago #

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glad to hear the technique works for you Mike :).

from NickWilsdon 343 days ago #

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Sorry Gab, I've having trouble finding any meat here. Your technique seems to be 'use archive.org'. The service has been around for a quite a while now and your new techniques only describe the kind of research you would use it for anyway.

1) Checking historical content or ownership changes. Yep, researching the owners and history is pretty much the standard use for Archive.org. AFAIK though you can not confirm any old penalties from IA.

2) Finding historical URLs

3) Checking old tests. OK but you'd need the results too to make any use of these.

I'm also a little uncomfortable the way you have link dropped to both your own services in the post (twice) and to your client.

from Gab 342 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Nick, the point of the post was to show what can be done with archive.org . Personally, I hadn't seen this type of material discussed elsewhere and thought I'd contribute something. If you already were using archive.org in this way, I'd say you're ahead of the pack. As I spoke to folks over the weekend, many didn't use it much, so this might help expand skillsets...

As to the link drops, I realize some people aren't crazy about it. That all said, I don't hide the fact that the blog is commercial and I write to build a reputation and attract clients through it - any seo blogger telling you otherwise isn't being completely honest. You don't have an issue with Aaron Wall's auto-inserted posts about his training program, presumably?

from Gab 342 days ago #

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(Also, as to it being inserted twice, one of those is done by the WWSGD plugin.)

from incrediblehelp 342 days ago #

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Not sure how any of this is "new".

from storyspinner 342 days ago #

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OK... wow, you all think these are new ways for using Archive.org? Wow, *is stunned*.

Sorry Gab, none of this is new, been using this, this way for a long long time.

from Gab 342 days ago #

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@Nick - The results would be helpful, but in their absence, you can see what was retained and draw basic conclusions from that.

@help, spinner - I read a lot, and have never seen SEOs discuss using it for these purposes.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Hhw&q=%22how+to+use+archive.org%22
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=I2b&q=uses+for+the+internet+archive&btnG=Search&meta=

Perhaps it's the ways vs purposes bit that makes you say it's not new? In any case, I'm honestly sorry that you didn't learn anything from it, but congratulate you for being so advanced as to have come up with this on your own. I'll be trying harder next time.

from Gab 342 days ago #

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The closest thing available is this, on mp3 hosting:
http://www.slideshare.net/AmitRanjan/use-the-internet-archives-wwwarchiveorg-for-hosting-the-mp3-audio-for-your-slidecast-457771?src=embed

from johnandrews 342 days ago #

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In robots.txt every single time:

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

Simply part of Competitive Webmastering.

from NickWilsdon 342 days ago #

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I've just done a quick search but Aaron seems to cover your main point here quite well.

"Another thing you want to look at in Archive.org is to see if the domain has had a period of inactivity, or if porn webmaster or a pay per click domainer owned the domain for a while. If the domain was inactive for a while, or spent a period of time being abused then it may have had some of its authority stripped at some time."

To be honest, it was just the 'new' in the title which baited me. I'm sure me and the other ppl who have commented here would have let it pass if you'd phrased it as "3 Suggested Uses for Archive.org".

Of course this may just be because I'm old (+ grumpy) and have probably read too many SEO articles. :)

@johnandrews yep good article and finally convinced me to go that way too. I can't see any benefit in having the IA keep a copy of my site.

from Cvent 341 days ago #

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I'd have to agree with Nick on this one, there's nothing really "new" to use on archive.org that's being covered in this article. True, there's not much content out there on the subject that I've seen. I love the idea of the archive, but honestly when I use the site, I find that it usually does not work or the sites that I'm trying to look at don't show up.

from johnandrews 337 days ago #

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Reminds me of the old days, when one could execute a simple DOS on the wayback so it opted not to check robots... and reveal the cached copy.

from Gab 333 days ago #

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Nick - I never read that from Aaron, but thanks for sharing. In fairness to me, that post is two years old (wow, the 'new' in the title does feel even more ironic now!) and I got started in SEO services around May of that year, so I wasn't reading Aaron regularly yet.

@ John - love the tip, thanks :D. Will add it for those who want to avoid getting scraped through the IA.

from NickWilsdon 333 days ago #

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Yes it's unfair of me to suggest you should read up on the entire SEO back-catalogue Gab. Sorry for sounding harsh there. You do write good material and I respect the way you're always looking for new angles. I guess a few people, myself included, have you marked out as someone with potential.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting you at PubCon with any luck, I'll get the beers :)