Individual skill
read-deleted-pages
Recover deleted, edited or historical web content using the Wayback Machine and its CDX API, archive.today, Common Crawl and Memento/Timetravel. Use when a page is deleted, changed or 404s, checking what a site used to say, finding old team or staff pages, prior pricing, removed posts, pre-redaction wording or old contact details, enumerating every archived URL for a domain, or preserving evidence before it disappears. Applies to litigation and evidence preservation, regulatory and disclosure review, due diligence on a company's history, and journalism. Reference at useosint.com/skills/read-deleted-pages.
skills/read-deleted-pages/SKILL.md
Source commit 06243a5620b0c9c97502edd4ee9e31995a3bdccd
What was checked
- Matches the observed repository HEAD
- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- No
- Repository scan complete
- No
- Skill scan complete
- No
- Observed behavior
- Not checked yet
- Last checked
- Nov 6, 2026
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Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 61
- Repository last updated
- Aug 3, 2026
- License
- MIT
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- agent-skills Repository topic
- ai-agents Repository topic
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- cursor-skills Repository topic
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- legal Derived category
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Files and excerpt
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Browse files
SKILL.mdcore · 14,001 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 14,001 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 14,001 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 14,001 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 14,001 bytesreference/archive-comparison.mddoc · 8,823 bytesreference/cdx-cookbook.mddoc · 8,767 bytes
Read excerpt
# Read deleted pages
Archives work because removal is a decision made after publication. The
beginner's mistake is treating the Wayback Machine as a website you browse: the
calendar UI shows one page at a time, while the CDX API enumerates every URL the
archive ever saw under a host, including paths nobody remembers.
## Which archive first
| Situation | Go to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A URL that 404s now | Wayback, then archive.today | Different corpora, different removal pressure |
| "What did this site say before X" | Wayback CDX with `collapse=digest` | Gives the dates content changed, not every capture |
| A JS-heavy page or a social post | archive.today | Captures the rendered DOM; Wayback often replays an empty shell |