Help:Using WebCite

Links archived with WebCite should appear in long format (see RfC).

An example long format URL:

https://www.webcitation.org/5eWaHRbn4?url=http://www.example.com/

The 9-digit "Snapshot ID," similar to URL shortening services, contains a base 62 coded timestamp that can be extracted by bots and other programs. It also serves as a unique page ID. This is followed by the original URL which helps protect against malicious code that is hiding an inappropriate link, such as spam.

This archive URL can be inserted into the archive-url= and its supporting archive-date= and url-status= parameters in any of the citation templates. If the original URL is no longer accessible, the url-status parameter value should be set to dead. If the original URL is still accessible, the url-status parameter value should be set to live.

<ref>{{cite web |last= |first= |title= |work= |publisher= |date= |url= |archive-url= |archive-date= |url-status= }}</ref>.

Web pages previously archived a WebCite can be found through a search form at https://www.webcitation.org/query

There is also an API. Please contact User:GreenC for information how this works.

You can help deprecate WebCite!

Ideas to get rid of WebCite links:

1. Search archive.org and archive.today - although bots already did this, bots are sometimes imperfect and a manual search could find something the bots missed.
2. Find a different origin URL on the live web. For example, if the origin URL is to a Reuters story published in the NYT, there is a good chance that same Reuters story is available elsewhere. Use Google to search.
3. Saving the WebCite link at archive.today works well and is recommended, however .. do not save at archive.org see "Things to be cautious of" below.
4. PDF files at WebCite do not save correctly at archive.today

Saving a WebCite URL at archive.today follow these steps:

1. Save https://www.webcitation.org/5QE8rvIqH?url=http://www.birdlife.org at archive.today which will generate short-form URL https://archive.today/Jrvg8
2. URL shortening is disallowed on Wikipedia; click the "share" button to see the long form: https://archive.today/20070710111036/https://www.webcitation.org/5QE8rvIqH?url=http://www.birdlife.org
3. A potential SNAFU is there might also be https://archive.today/20070710111036/http://www.birdlife.org but this will probably contain different content then what you just saved at https://archive.today/20070710111036/https://www.webcitation.org/5QE8rvIqH?url=http://www.birdlife.org

Things to be cautious of:

• It is not possible to save WebCite URLs at archive.org - it may appear to save correctly, but is an unreliable method. For why see this discussion.
• Be aware of "content drift". When a web page has content that changes over time, such as stock prices or weather updates, this is called "drift". When the original WebCite snapshot was created it contains the intended information eg. current status of a typhoon at a certain day and hour. However, this page may change quickly, any any future snapshot of that same page will have different information. Thus when finding snapshots at other archive providers, be aware of content drift for certain types of pages.

• Wikipedia:Link rot, how-to guide for prevention of link rot
• Using the Wayback Machine, how-to guide
• Using Archive.today, how-to guide
• Using Perma.cc

• {{User WebCite}}, userbox
• User:UBX/WebCite, alternative userbox
• User:UBX/WebCite2, "I donated" userbox