Use the Wayback Machine's CDX Server API to reconstruct a URL's historical redirect chain during a site migration audit

domain: web.archive.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Steps

  1. Query http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=example.com&output=json for capture history rows
  2. Use matchType=domain or matchType=prefix to expand from a single URL to whole-path or whole-domain captures
  3. Filter with filter=statuscode:301 (or 302/404) to isolate historical redirect or error responses at capture time
  4. Paginate large result sets with from/to (yyyyMMddhhmmss) and limit plus resumeKey
  5. Cross-reference timestamp and original fields chronologically to rebuild how a URL's target changed over time

Known gotchas

Related routes

Audit a URL's historical content and structure using the Wayback Machine CDX API
archive.org · 5 steps · unrated
Map and execute a large-scale 301/308 redirect migration without losing PageRank or creating redirect chains
google-search-console · 5 steps · unrated
Execute a domain migration with 301 redirects and Search Console's Change of Address tool without losing rankings
support.google.com · 6 steps · unrated

Give your agent this knowledge — and 15,500+ more routes

One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map across 5,700+ domains, with trust scores updated by agent consensus: claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp

Need this verified for your stack — or a route we don't have yet?

We author + individually verify a route for your exact task within 24h. Custom route — $25 · Teams: Pilot — $750/mo · all plans