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{{Information page|shortcut1=WP:ATODAY}}
{{nutshell|archive.today and its domains are deprecated for use on English Wikipedia. New links to the service cannot be added. {{strong|We need your help with removing existing links}} to it.}}

The English Wikipedia has decided to stop using [[archive.today]] and its related websites. This decision was agreed on after [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5|a request for comment with more than 200 participants]] concluded in February 2026, and is [[Wikipedia:archive.today guidance#Why are we doing this?|due to multiple concerns]], including the site using editors' and readers' computers to run a [[denial-of-service attack]] and evidence that the website has tampered with some archived pages.

The addition of these archive links is blocked by the [[Wikipedia:Edit filter|edit filter]] on English Wikipedia. Since June 2026, these links have also been in the [[:m:Spam blacklist|global spam blacklist]] so that additions are blocked on every Wikimedia Foundation site. Now {{strong|we need everyone's help to replace or remove links to these websites}}. {{as of|2026|2|28}}, the citation templates in popular use on Wikipedia ([[WP:CS1]] and [[WP:CS2]]) will not render archive.today and affiliated archive URLs.<ref>{{diff2|1340933710|cs1{{|}}2_templates_and_archive.today_et_al.|See talk page update}}</ref>

Note: archive.org, or web.archive.org, run by the [[Internet Archive]] and the most-used web archive on Wikipedia, is uninvolved with and entirely separate from archive.today. '''Please keep using archive.org'''.

== How you can help ==

=== Find an article containing one of these links ===
Please help remove and replace links to these domain names:

* archive.today – {{search link|insource:"archive.today" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
* archive.is – {{search link|insource:"archive.is" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
* archive.ph – {{search link|insource:"archive.ph" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
* archive.fo – {{search link|insource:"archive.fo" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
* archive.li – {{search link|insource:"archive.li" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
* archive.md – {{search link|insource:"archive.md" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
* archive.vn – {{search link|insource:"archive.vn" -intitle:"archive.today"|search}}
You can narrow these search results by clicking the "search" link, and then adding a keyword (e.g., "politician" or "painting") to the search box, and re-running the search box.{{center|{{Clickable button 2|Special:RandomInCategory/CS1 maint: deprecated archival service|Fix a random page with an archive.today link|class=mw-ui-progressive}}|style=margin:1em}}

==== Other options ====

* We have a [[Wikipedia:archive.today guidance/high traffic pages report|'''list of the highest traffic articles containing these links''']]! Please pick one and see if you can replace the archive links (and/or the sources themselves, if something better is available). As of {{green|'''6 September 2026'''}}: 69 to go.
* '''WikiProjects''' can copy the code in [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Louisville/Archive.today]] to get a bot-generated list of affected articles. We're working on a way to create smaller work lists focused on any articles that interest you (e.g., within [[List of songs by Taylor Swift]] or within a custom list that you create).
* There is a '''new web-based tool''' for detecting and removing these websites. Go to https://fixarchive.toolforge.org/ and put in the name of an article, category, or topic to scan it and automatically search for a different archiving link. If it finds one, check the article and the suggested link to make sure that the archived copy will verify the article content. Then click the 'Verified?' button and 'Push Verified Archives to Wikipedia'. It will open the editing window, copy and paste the new link, and show you a diff of the changes. It will ''not'' publish the changes to the article; you need to check the diff and decide if you want to post that yourself.
** If the 'Verified?' button stays greyed out: ensure you've clicked the green highlighted Archive link (if you only [[right-click]] to open in a new tab, it will not un-grey the button).
* The [[:Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archival service|tracking category 'CS1 maint: deprecated archival service']] has a list of the {{PAGESINCATEGORY:CS1 maint: deprecated archival service}} articles and pages in other [[WP:NS|subject namespace]]s (excluding user pages) using archive.today or its associated [[TLD]]s .fo, .is, .li, .md, .ph, and .vn. This does not include articles that are not using [[Wikipedia:Citation templates|citation templates]].
* Full dump of all articles linking to archive.today without duplicate entries as of 20 February 2026 is [https://web.archive.org/web/20260220213319if_/https://d.uguu.se/qxKgWsKM.txt available here] ('''warning: broken encoding'''; download the file to fix it). This may be most useful to bot operators.
* Users on the [[WP:AWB/C|AutoWikiBrowser checkpage]] can use [[WP:AWB|AutoWikiBrowser]] or [[WP:JWB|JavaWikiBrowser]] to generate a list of all pages that link to archive.today, and edit the links out directly in the interface. The only thing you have to do to move on to the next page once you are done with one is click "Save".
* Articles with '''many''' uses can be tagged with {{tlx|deprecated archival service|date{{=}}{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. Due to the scale of the problem, please don't tag pages with just one or a few of these deprecated URLs right now.

=== Replace or remove the link ===
There are three main ways to do this:

* '''Use a different archiving service'''. Replace the archive link so it points to a different archive with a copy of the source, such as the [[Wayback Machine]] at the [[Internet Archive]] (https://web.archive.org/), Ghostarchive (https://ghostarchive.org) or [[Megalodon.jp|Megalodon]] (https://megalodon.jp; [[Help:Archiving a source#Megalodon.jp|how to use megalodon.jp]]). More options can be found at [[WP:List of web archives on Wikipedia|the list of web archives]].
* '''Find a new source'''. Change the original source to something that doesn't need an archive (e.g., a source that was printed on paper), or for which a link to an archive is only a matter of [[Wikipedia:Convenience link|convenience]].
* '''Remove unnecessary links'''. Archive links are recommended, but not required. If you can't find a trustworthy option, then remove it.

If the referenced material is just a short text out of the whole source, you can [[Help:Citation_Style_1#Quote|quote]] the relevant part in the reference tag.

Note: [[Archive.org|Archive.<em>org</em>]], run by the [[Internet Archive]], is uninvolved with and entirely separate from archive.today.

====Step-by-step instructions:====

* '''If a citation's original URL is still live''', and the citation includes an archive.today URL as a pre-emptive archive ([[WP:EARLYARCHIVE]]):
** Remove the archive URL, archive date, and URL status.
** Ideally replace with an alternative archive, such as from Archive.org.
* '''If a citation's original URL is dead''', try repairing it. See [[WP:DEADREF]] for detailed advice. Basic steps:
** Look up the original URL on one of the aforementioned services.
*** If an archive is available there, replace the archive.today URL with the new URL.
*** Update the archive date if needed.
** If that didn't work, try a web search for the title of the cited source, or for a quote from the text of archived page, because the original website may have moved the content to a different URL. If you find a live URL:
*** Replace the original URL and access date.
*** Remove the archive URL, archive date, and URL status.
If an archive.today URL is in the "External links" section, see [[WP:ELDEAD]] for tips.

== When visiting archive.today ==
{{hatnote|Caution: Do not run scripts or follow instructions from the Internet unless you know explicitly what changes are happening. Incorrectly modifying the files below could have serious adverse effects.}}

If you need to access archive.today, you should install a content blocking extension in your browser (such as [[uBlock Origin]]) that prevents archive.today from using your computer to send unnecessary web requests when you load its pages. Alternatively, you can temporarily block gyrovague.com in the [[Hosts (file)|hosts]] file (located at <syntaxhighlight lang="dos" inline>%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts</syntaxhighlight> on [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], <syntaxhighlight lang="bash" inline>/private/etc/hosts</syntaxhighlight> on [[macOS]], and <syntaxhighlight lang="bash" inline>/etc/hosts</syntaxhighlight> on [[Linux]]) on your computer by appending <code>0.0.0.0 gyrovague.com</code> on a new line in the file. This will require the use of administrator or superuser permissions. When saving the file, do <em>not</em> append a <code>.txt</code> or other file extension, the file name should simply be <code>hosts</code>. If you edit the Hosts file, make sure to also change your browser settings to disable "secure DNS" (Chromium) or "DNS over HTTPS" (Firefox).

== Highlighter ==
To highlight references with archive.today archives, copy and paste this stylesheet to your [[special:mypage/common.css|common.css]] user subpage:
<syntaxhighlight lang="css" copy="">
.mw-parser-output .reference-text:has(
a[href*="//archive.today"],
a[href*="//archive.is"],
a[href*="//archive.fo"],
a[href*="//archive.ph"],
a[href*="//archive.md"],
a[href*="//archive.vn"],
a[href*="//archive.li"]
) {
background: var(--background-color-error-subtle, #ffe5e5);
}
</syntaxhighlight>

== Why are we doing this? ==
In January 2026, [[archive.today]] added code into its website in order to perform a [[Denial-of-service attack|distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack]] against a blog.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brodkin |first=Jon |date=February 10, 2026 |title=archive.today CAPTCHA page executes DDoS; Wikipedia considers banning site |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-might-blacklist-archive-today-after-site-maintainer-ddosed-a-blog/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=Ars Technica |language=en}}</ref> This code uses the computers of visitors of the site to repeatedly send requests to the blog, with the goal of overwhelming the blog's ability to handle legitimate traffic. It was later discovered that archive.today tampered with archived web pages.<ref name="RFC_ArchiveIs_Evidence">See discussion at {{section link|Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5|Evidence of altering snapshots}}</ref> It was also later discovered that this was not the first DDoS attack archive.today has performed. The code is still present {{as of|2026|June|5|lc=y}}, but has been modified to reduce the frequency of malicious calls.<ref>The DDoS code can be viewed through [[Web development tools|developer tools]] in [[Wayback Machine]] snapshots of archive.today, including [https://web.archive.org/web/20260219054559/https://archive.ph/ a snapshot] of its archive.ph [[Mirror site|mirror]] that dates to 05:45 on 19 February 2026 (UTC).</ref> On June 12, at least two users reported their requests were redirected to tehrantimes.com. Some common [[ad blockers]], such as [[uBlock Origin]], are currently stopping these malicious requests.[[File:archive.today inspect element screenshot with external fetch code circled.jpg|thumb|right|The malicious code which made a random request to the targeted website every 300 milliseconds]]

archive.today is an archive site capable of archiving some websites that no other current archive sites can reliably handle. Before being deprecated, it was linked nearly 700,000 times on English Wikipedia (see [[#Stats]] section below). In addition to the DDoS attack and deceptive archive modifications, there is concern about its long-term viability. These concerns were discussed in a [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC 5|request for comment]] that started on 7 February 2026 and was closed on 20 February. The closing statement is below:<ref>See [https://archive-is.tumblr.com/post/809164190707253248/i-almost-forgot-june-maxam Archive.is blog] and these [[Hacker News]] posts ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098879], [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38233062])</ref>

{{tq2|There is consensus to immediately deprecate [[archive.today]], and, as soon as practicable, add it to the spam blacklist (or create an edit filter that blocks adding new links) and remove all links to it. There is a strong consensus that Wikipedia should not direct its readers towards a website that hijacks users' computers to run a DDoS attack (see [[[WP:ELNO#EL3|WP:ELNO#3]]]). Additionally, evidence has been presented that archive.today's operators have altered the content of archived pages, rendering it unreliable. Those in favor of maintaining the status quo rested their arguments primarily on the utility of archive.today for [[WP:verifiability|verifiability]]. However, an analysis of existing links has shown that most of its uses can be replaced. Several editors started to work out implementation details during this RfC and the community should figure out how to efficiently remove links to archive.today.}}

== Stats ==
When the RfC closed in late February 2026, English Wikipedia had '''724,207''' links to archive.today.

As of May 9, 2026, there are '''681,554'''. This is the total count of links that exist in wikitext namespace 0 (Main) based on a literal [[Regular expression|regex]] search.

SQL database queries are available at [[Wikipedia:archive.today guidance/statistics]]. These stats are not physical counts, rather the number of links that are visibly rendered in HTML. CS1|2 templates hide the physical links from being rendered, or from showing up in the SQL database, thus these counts are much lower than the number of physical links that exist in the wikitext.

=== Top 25 most cited domains ===
Top domains archived by Archive Today on English Wikipedia:

* factfinder.census.gov 14566
* www.webcitation.org 9114
* pqasb.pqarchiver.com 6277
* www.nytimes.com 5022
* www.newspapers.com 4138
* slam.canoe.ca 3861
* articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com 3761
* www.metacritic.com 2469
* www.washingtonpost.com 2452
* sailboatdata.com 2340
* www.bbc.co.uk 2270
* www.facebook.com 1956
* www.reuters.com 1853
* www.cyclingarchives.com 1711
* archive.org 1695
* comics.shogakukan.co.jp 1690
* www.telegraph.co.uk 1589
* www.billboard.com 1586
* soccernet.espn.go.com 1558
* www.emporis.com 1557
* en.archive.uefa.com 1556
* www.mtv.com 1442
* twitter.com 1439
* jam.canoe.ca 1413
* x.com 1398

== References ==
<references />

Noumenapedia:Archive.today guidance - Revision history

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