Wayback Mcp Server

Wayback MCP Server

MCP server for the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Enables AI assistants like Claude to analyze historical webpage snapshots for SEO analysis and content change tracking.

[](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

Features

• Archive Availability Check - Verify if URLs are archived (with automatic www/non-www variant checking)
• Snapshot Listing - Browse all archived versions with filtering
• Content Extraction - Fetch snapshots with SEO metadata extraction
• Snapshot Comparison - Compare two versions to identify changes
• Bulk Operations - Check multiple URLs efficiently
• Changes Timeline - Visualize content evolution over time
• SEO Impact Analysis - Score changes for SEO impact
• Site-Wide URL Discovery - Get all archived URLs for a domain

Installation

Option 1: OpenClaw Skill (Recommended)

If you're using OpenClaw, the Wayback skill is available out of the box:

# The skill is included in the workspace
# Just use it - no installation needed!

Example commands:

# Check if a URL is archived
node ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/wayback/scripts/wayback.js check "https://example.com"

# List snapshots
node ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/wayback/scripts/wayback.js snapshots "https://example.com" --limit 10

# Compare two points in time
node ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/wayback/scripts/wayback.js compare "https://example.com" \
  --from 20230101000000 --to 20231231000000

Option 2: Claude Desktop (MCP Server)

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wayback": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/wayback-mcp-server/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Option 3: Run from Source

git clone https://github.com/seo-bandwagon/wayback-mcp-server.git
cd wayback-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build
npm start

Available Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | wayback_check_availability | Check if a URL is archived | | wayback_get_snapshots | List all snapshots with filtering | | wayback_get_snapshot_content | Fetch content with metadata extraction | | wayback_compare_snapshots | Compare two snapshots | | wayback_bulk_check | Check multiple URLs (max 50) | | wayback_get_changes_timeline | Timeline of content changes | | wayback_analyze_changes | SEO-focused change analysis | | wayback_get_site_urls | Get all archived URLs for a domain |

Example Usage

With Claude/OpenClaw

Once configured, you can ask:

• "Check if example.com is in the Wayback Machine"
• "Show me all snapshots of example.com from 2023"
• "Compare the homepage from January vs December 2023"
• "What SEO changes happened on this page between these dates?"
• "What URLs have been archived for example.com?"
• "Find all archived blog posts on moz.com"

CLI Examples

# Check availability
node wayback.js check "https://seobandwagon.com"
# Output: available: true, timestamp: 20251209071137

# Get snapshots from 2023
node wayback.js snapshots "https://moz.com" --year 2023 --limit 10

# Get content with SEO metadata
node wayback.js content "https://example.com" --latest

# Compare two versions
node wayback.js compare "https://example.com" --from 20230101000000 --to 20231201000000

# Get all archived URLs for a domain
node wayback.js urls "example.com" --limit 50

# Bulk check multiple URLs
node wayback.js bulk-check "https://a.com" "https://b.com" "https://c.com"

Use Cases

SEO Analysis

• Track competitor changes over time
• Analyze title/description evolution
• Find removed content
• Monitor redirect implementations

Content Research

• Find original content before redesigns
• Verify historical claims
• Track pricing changes
• Research topic evolution

Technical SEO

• Diagnose traffic drops (before/after comparison)
• Find what content used to exist at broken URLs
• Analyze site structure changes

Configuration

Environment variables (all optional):

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | WAYBACK_CACHE_PATH | ~/.wayback-mcp/cache.json | Cache file location | | WAYBACK_CACHE_TTL | 3600 | Default cache TTL (seconds) | | WAYBACK_LOG_LEVEL | info | Log level: debug, info, warn, error |

Rate Limiting

The server implements conservative rate limiting to respect archive.org:

• Availability checks: 15/minute
• CDX queries: 10/minute
• Content fetches: 5/minute

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18.0.0

Related Projects

• OpenClaw - AI assistant framework with native Wayback skill
• Model Context Protocol - The protocol this server implements
• Internet Archive - Data source for all historical snapshots

License

MIT - see [LICENSE](LICENSE)

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please read [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) first.

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Built by SEO Bandwagon | Data provided by the Internet Archive

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: seo-bandwagon
• Source: seo-bandwagon/wayback-mcp-server
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.