Websites are inherently dynamic and fragile in regard to long-term preservation. Domains may cease to be funded; content may be moved, outdated, or intentionally deleted. Web archiving is not only useful in documenting past iterations of websites, it can also be a powerful resource when content is removed for political reasons. As information is increasingly born-digital, web archiving becomes an increasingly important tool for 21st century archivists and researchers.
The most prevalent web archiving site is the Wayback Machine, an Internet Archive project. To use the Wayback Machine, simply enter a web address and then click through the calendar to observe changes over time.
The NYU Libraries' Data Services libguide on September 9, 2025
The NYU Libraries' Data Services libguide on January 17, 2025.
The Wayback Machine reveals that a "Special Topics" dataset was removed from the website between January and September of 2025. The Wayback Machine allows the user to navigate through the archived website, but may not be able to connect to all previous components of the site.
Clicking into the January 17, 2025 archived Special Topics on Black Lives Matter Data and Resources leads to the landing page for that site.
Screenshot of NYU Curated Data Sets, Wayback Machine capture from July 30, 2025
Clicking on the first project "Photos of Artwork of the Black Lives Matter Movement in Soho, New York City" on the BLM Data page brings us to a dead end.
While the Wayback Machine's crawl allows a user to explore past iterations of the website, the crawl may not have been set to follow multiple clicks deep into a site or may have been blocked for other reasons. Although we may not be able to access all of the original content or layout, there are usually hints or leads to changes in content over time. These breadcrumbs may be enough for a researcher to follow to the original content. Or, depending on the scope of the research, may be helpful in identifying changing layouts, tone, themes, and content over time.
The Wayback machine can assist with site re-directs as well. For example, the former Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY used the url www.poly.edu. If you search poly.edu on the Wayback Machine, you'll find the url was first captured on April 27, 1997 and was last crawled on August 19, 2025.
Searching poly.edu in the Wayback Machine to see the first capture and latest web crawl for the site.
NYU completed a merger with Polytechnic University on January 1, 2014, which is when the poly.edu website was no longer active, but rather was re-directing to engineering.nyu.edu. Although poly.edu has been inactive for over a decade, the Wayback Machine is a useful way to make the historical connection and chart the institutional change from Brooklyn Poly (poly,edu) to NYU Tandon (engineering.nyu.edu).
Searching poly.edu on the Wayback Machine in January 2014 redirects to engineering.nyu.edu
The Wayback Machine successfully redirects to the new webpage for NYU engineering, but not all elements of the page load.