Hello guys!
I’m going to show you a trick that helps a lot when searching for a domain using web.archive (wayback machine).
If you don’t know what https://archive.org/ is
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web. Since its launch in 2001, over 728 billion pages have been added to the archive.
Users can enter a URL to view and interact with past versions of any website contained in the Archive, even if the site no longer exists on the “live” web. It is part of the Internet Archive.
fine…
When we hunting for bugs we use the wayback machine a lot, to find files that have been indexed, or that have old versions that may contain some sensitive information.
It is very common for us to access this website and add the domain after the url= parameter
https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=example.com%2F*&collapse=urlkey&output=text&fl=original
but we can use a trick from the browser itself to make our lives easier.
basically we added a SEARCH ENGINE!
How does the search engine work?
It’s basically a shortcut available in the browser so that we don’t need to write the website’s domain (example: google.com) and then access the search area (https://www.google.com/search?q=) and then search what we need (https://www.google.com/search?q=some+stuff)
in most browsers we enter the initials of the search site (like: youtube) and press “tab” and type something and it completes the search INSIDE the site, without having to enter the site first and then search.
and with that we will do our optimization for archive.org
but it can be done for any website that you usually access and search…
( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)
let’s get to what matters!
all browsers have the same standard, which is to include a “%s” where the input will be inserted
in MICROSOFT EDGE
in url type:
edge://settings/searchEngines?search=
click in “add”
Search engine: archive
Shortcut: archive.org
URL with %s in place of query:
https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=%s%2F*&collapse=urlkey&output=text&fl=original
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
for GOOGLE CHROME
chrome://settings/searchEngines
Search engine > add
Shortcut: archive
Search engine: archive.org
URL with %s in place of query
https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=%s%2F*&collapse=urlkey&output=text&fl=original
in firefox the add is desabled by default but you can active with this steps
First we have to active the add button
in search bar type
about:config
and paste this — -> browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh
click on + (add)now type in search bar
about:preferences#search
scrool down in search shortcutsSearch engine name: archive.org
alias: archive
URL with %s in place of query:
https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=%s%2F*&collapse=urlkey&output=text&fl=original
and if everything went well…
when we type “archive“ and press “TAB” and type the “target website”, it will look like this
thanks and go hunting!
