How to: Web archive

Wowhead

We all know about www.wowhead.com (am I right?) which can be considered as one of the most powerful tool every developer uses. But information in wowhead may be not valid anymore for expansion you contribute to. In that case we have the time machine: http://web.archive.org/

How to visit archieved page (Wowhead)

There are multiple different ways how you can visit archived page through web archive. For example we want to check creature named Isla Starmane, its entry is 18760.

Visit http://web.archive.org/
Paste URL www.wowhead.com/npc=18760 to search and press Enter
You will be taken to http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.wowhead.com/npc=18760
As you can see that page was archived multiple times. If you're contributing to 3.3.5 expansion, select year 2010.
Select any archived in 2010 page. For example you will be taken to http://web.archive.org/web/20100928004253/www.wowhead.com/npc=18760
I see nothing useful. You too? Everything is fine. Right-click on page and click on option View page source
You will be taken to view-source:http://web.archive.org/web/20100928004253/www.wowhead.com/npc=18760
Type ctrl+f and type something you are looking for. For example for abilities. Or you can always check for Listview. It contains abilities, loot, quests and other stuff. In case of abilities all abilities will be look like that:

new Listview({template: 'spell', id: 'abilities', name: LANG.tab_abilities, tabs: tabsRelated, parent: 'lkljbjkb574', visibleCols: ['schools'], hiddenCols: ['reagents', 'skill'], computeDataFunc: Listview.funcBox.initModeFilter, onAfterCreate: Listview.funcBox.addModeIndicator, data: [{"cat":-8,"id":33844,"level":20,"name":"@Entangling Roots","schools":8,modes:{"mode":4}},{"cat":-8,"id":15798,"level":20,"name":"@Moonfire","schools":64,modes:{"mode":4}},{"cat":-8,"id":9739,"level":20,"name":"@Wrath","schools":8,modes:{"mode":4}}]});

Let's make it readable so you can see what it is:

{"cat":-8,"id":33844,"level":20,"name":"@Entangling Roots","schools":8,modes:{"mode":4}},
{"cat":-8,"id":15798,"level":20,"name":"@Moonfire","schools":64,modes:{"mode":4}}
{"cat":-8,"id":9739,"level":20,"name":"@Wrath","schools":8,modes:{"mode":4}}

More ways to visit page (Wowhead)

http://web.archive.org/web/2010*/www.wowhead.com/npc=18760 will take you directly to all archieved in 2010 pages.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.wowhead.com/npc=18760 will take you directly to the year with the last archieved page.

If you need to check something multiple times, you can try this method:

Visit any archived page the way you like and view its source code
For example I was taken to view-source:http://web.archive.org/web/20100928004253/www.wowhead.com/npc=18760
Now change ID of creature to another, for example to 18794
You will be taken to closest available archived page, for example view-source:http://web.archive.org/web/20100709160452/http://www.wowhead.com/npc=18794 WARNING! You may be taken to different year if page was not not archived in 2010, for example to 2012. If you're working on loot, the result will be completely different from year 2010. Keep an eye at the year every time you use that method.