How To Retrieve Material That Once Was There, But Now Is Not

[Ursus]

To Those That Would Be Interested:
How To Retrieve Material That Once Was There, But Now Is Not:

Got to Google
Select: Advanced Search
Enter: relevant search words in the Find Results box
Enter: site or domain name in the Domain box
Hit return
Open cache rather than site link in the search results.

[webdiva]

or  go here they go FAR FAR BACK way farther then google
http://http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

[Ursus]

But how does one penetrate into Forum archives?  Wayback only give me their indexes, not the contents.

[webdiva]

Did you check? heheh  It has pages that have long since been deleted from fornits unless they were requested to be removed. Google will only cache pages that Exist.. if they no longer exist EVENTUALLY they will get dropped when the site is respidered. Archive.org keeps them forever. its just another way to get good info.  For instance you go here

Over 26000 posts dating back to 2004
It will show posts only if you put viewtopic* at the end of your search term etc.

The board from 2002

BOTH are good resources for different reasons.  However archive.org TRULY archives google doesn't once it realizes the page is missing.

[webdiva]

Wayback only give me their indexes, not the contents.

Not so u just need to know how to search. ill send you some tips sometime. takes a little getting used to but check out their advanced search section.

[webdiva]

But how does one penetrate into Forum archives?  Wayback only give me their indexes, not the contents.

You can even find Member lists from members that are gone and deleted. I my get shot but hey this is public knowledge.  and you will hit some links that don't work you can't always drill down through the entire site but still you can find missing posts esp if you have some info about that post.

YOu can break the search down to just search a specific time period too.

[Froderik]

This is all very interesting...

But as I'm reading this I wonder why would someone (aside from an internet cop, maybe) want to bother looking up "yesterday's papers"?

[webdiva]

This is all very interesting...

But as I'm reading this I wonder why would someone (aside from an internet cop, maybe) want to bother looking up "yesterday's papers"?

Well Frod let me explain. Lets say sally joe posts some really important info. A year later sally comes back and deletes it.   It will be in the archives none the less...

It's a public library that stores information just like libraries keep newspapers years back.  If someone dies and their site and info gets deleted, its gone. This prevents that. Have you checked it out? its not just "archiving websites" thats one of many things.

Music, audio books, video, educational material, congressional and government documents, software, books etc.  And this is Global.  All PUBLIC information nothing private but still to be able to go to one site for reference material on just about anything is awesome.

[Froderik]

This is all very interesting...

But as I'm reading this I wonder why would someone (aside from an internet cop, maybe) want to bother looking up "yesterday's papers"?

It's a public library that stores information just like libraries keep newspapers years back.  If someone dies and their site and info gets deleted, its gone. This prevents that. Have you checked it out? its not just "archiving websites" thats one of many things.

Music, audio books, video, educational material, congressional and government documents, software, books etc.  And this is Global.  All PUBLIC information nothing private but still to be able to go to one site for reference material on just about anything is awesome.

Yeah, I know it what it does (I checked it out a few months ago when psy posted something about it.)

I guess I could think of a few dead links that I'd kinda like to revisit, but for the most part I look at it like what's gone is gone and I'm pretty much ok with that...(concerning stuff on the internet).

[webdiva]

This is all very interesting...

But as I'm reading this I wonder why would someone (aside from an internet cop, maybe) want to bother looking up "yesterday's papers"?

It's a public library that stores information just like libraries keep newspapers years back.  If someone dies and their site and info gets deleted, its gone. This prevents that. Have you checked it out? its not just "archiving websites" thats one of many things.

Music, audio books, video, educational material, congressional and government documents, software, books etc.  And this is Global.  All PUBLIC information nothing private but still to be able to go to one site for reference material on just about anything is awesome.

Yeah, I know it what it does (I checked it out a few months ago when psy posted something about it.)

I guess I could think of a few dead links that I'd kinda like to revisit, but for the most part I look at it like what's gone is gone and I'm pretty much ok with that...(concerning stuff on the internet).

Im sure you will be fine yes. and yeah there is a search feature on the site DEDICATED to the dead! oh you mean dead links like no longer existing?  cuz they do have  a search filter dedicated to the Grateful Dead. LOL The only band that got that perk.

basically its like a library on steroids.  i think more people in college and highschool would find it beneficial and people that do heavy research etc.  

anyway thank you for participating in this week's lesson. Next week we will be discussing "Alternative communication methods, when your friends don't like to talk on Phones." Do join us!  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:

[Ursus]

Gotcha.  This info is most excellent!

Here are two specific questions:

1.  How quickly do pages become available for the advanced searching?  I.e. what is the lag time from right now (point in time of search) back to when page was originally created?  Can I search for specific pages that were available one month ago but are not today?  (These pages are not available on Google's cache since posts were deleted and the pages have been re-spidered in the interim.).

2.  Can you be more specific about this:

It will show posts only if you put viewtopic* at the end of your search term etc.

For example, I've been able to figure out my query to this point of:  http://web.archive.org/YYYYMMDDhhmmss/h ... erest.info
Where does the query of "viewtopic*" get put into that string?[/list]
THANKS!

[webdiva]

Gotcha.  This info is most excellent!

Here are two specific questions:

1.  How quickly do pages become available for the advanced searching?  I.e. what is the lag time from right now (point in time of search) back to when page was originally created?  Can I search for specific pages that were available one month ago but are not today?  (These pages are not available on Google's cache since posts were deleted and the pages have been re-spidered in the interim.).

2.  Can you be more specific about this:

It will show posts only if you put viewtopic* at the end of your search term etc.

For example, I've been able to figure out my query to this point of:  http://web.archive.org/YYYYMMDDhhmmss/h ... erest.info
Where does the query of "viewtopic*" get put into that string?[/list]
THANKS!

That was an example for fornits. they have a page called viewtopic...  Basically i usually first do a search just on something like fornits.com/wwf  then if i get about 40000 results i try to narrow it down based on what im looking for.  If you can give me an idea of what you're lookin for i can probably help you out.