Research Tips from the Tyndale Library

Have you ever tried to visit a website only to get a “Not found” message?

Chances are the site has either closed down or moved to another location. This could be especially annoying if the website contained some stellar content or a directory of links to some other important websites.

If this has happened to you, there are a couple of methods that you can use to retrieve to that old website and access the much needed information.

One way is to first look up that site using Google search and then click on the “Cached” link in the results list. Using this method you can retrieve a snapshot of what the Web site looked like when it was indexed last by Google.

This method is useful if the site closed down or moved very recently - the last 1 or 2 days. Google indexes its web sites quite frequently and the chances of you retrieving the same “Not found” message become greater as the days go by after the site closes.

The other method is to use the “Way Back Machine” tool on the www.archive.org website. Simply enter the URL (web address) of the site into the search engine and press the “Take Me Back” button.

The Way Back Machine will then search for the site in its archive of well over 150 billion web pages.

This is probably the best method - aside from contacting the author(s) - of retrieving a closed down and/or relocated website because some of the websites in the archive go back up to 15 years. What’s even better is that the outside links in the site are archived as well.

To cite the page using APA try following one of the examples below:

Press, M (08-16-2007). Canadian Education on the Web. Retrieved on May 6, 2009 from www.archive.org, archived at web.archive.org/web/20080109054933/http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/canedweb/.

Visit the Tyndale Library Blog every week for more research tips. You can also visit one of our friendly reference staff at one of the Tyndale Libraries.