read-deleted-pages

Recover deleted and historical web content using the Wayback Machine CDX API, archive.today, and Common Crawl.

38|2|Updated Aug 2, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/UseOSINT/Skills --skill read-deleted-pages-useosint
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent▼
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: read-deleted-pages
Source: https://github.com/UseOSINT/Skills/tree/main/skills/read-deleted-pages
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/UseOSINT/Skills --skill read-deleted-pages-useosint

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill includes references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve? Web pages get deleted, edited, or quietly rewritten, and the live site only shows the current version. This Skill recovers prior versions of pages, enumerates every URL an archive ever captured for a domain, and preserves evidence before it disappears. ## Core Features & Use Cases - CDX API enumeration: Query the Wayback Machine's CDX index with matchType, filters, and collapse=digest to list every archived URL under a domain and pinpoint the exact dates content changed. - Multi-archive recovery: Fall back to archive.today for JavaScript-heavy pages, Common Crawl for independent coverage, and Memento aggregators for national archives when Wayback has nothing or shows an exclusion. - Evidence preservation and verification: Capture pages to hashed WARC files, submit to two independent archives, fetch raw captures with the id_ modifier, and grade findings with a confirmed/probable/unconfirmed confidence scale. - Use Case: A supplier claims an industry certification. You use collapse=digest on their certifications page, diff the raw captures either side of a change, and discover the accreditor's name was quietly swapped — with a dated, citable archive URL for each version. ## Quick Start Use the read-deleted-pages skill to find what example.com's team page said before it was edited last year and list every archived URL under the domain.

Frequently Asked Questions about read-deleted-pages

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I find a deleted web page using the Wayback Machine?▼

Query the CDX API at web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx with the URL and output=json to list all captures, then fetch a specific capture using the replay URL with the id_ modifier for the raw archived response. If Wayback has nothing, check archive.today and Common Crawl, which hold different corpora.

How do I see every URL the Wayback Machine archived for a domain?▼

Use the CDX API with matchType=domain and collapse=urlkey to enumerate every captured URL under a host and all its subdomains, deduplicated. This routinely surfaces staging, legacy, and internal hosts that no longer appear in DNS.

Wayback Machine vs archive.today: which should I use?▼

Use Wayback first for history, change tracking, and its queryable CDX index. Use archive.today for JavaScript-heavy pages and social posts since it captures the rendered DOM, and whenever Wayback shows an exclusion, because archive.today does not honor the same removal routes.

Why does an archived page replay as blank or broken?▼

Pages rendered client-side from API calls archive as empty shells because the API response was never captured. Fetch the raw capture with the id_ timestamp modifier before concluding the archive has nothing, and try archive.today, which renders pages in a browser before saving.

Can archived web pages be used as legal evidence?▼

A capture proves a URL served specific content to a crawler at a specific time, but says nothing about who controlled the URL. Strengthen evidence by capturing your own hashed WARC, submitting to two independent archives, and corroborating with crawler-initiated captures rather than on-demand submissions.

What are the limitations of web archive research?▼

Absence of a capture does not prove a page never existed — it may be unlinked, login-gated, or excluded. Capture time only bounds publication date from above, replayed pages mix resources from different dates, and sparse sampling can miss changes that were later reverted.