How to Find Web Pages That Have Gone Missing
Biff Barnes
Error 404. The requested URL was not found on this server.
Argh!
Courtesy of Paul Inkles under Creative Commons
Have you ever found just the online source you are looking for, copied a link into your files, and tried to come back to it later only to find the page missing? Frustrating! It feels like you have run into a brick wall, but, in fact, there are several ways to find web pages as they used to exist.
Many people know about using the Google cached pages to find a missing page. Other have used the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive site to find their to a missing source to a source.
Search Engine Showdown provides a very useful list in a post titled Finding Old Web Pages which gives you information on a variety of less well known tools to help you find web pages that have gone missing.
If you have a favorite tool for finding missing pages, please share it below.