Being seen by the internet archive

I was asked how to ensure one’s site is available on the wayback machine. I asked google gemini, which said,

“You don’t formally “register” a website with the Internet Archive in an account portal; instead, you make your site accessible for archiving or manually submit its pages to the Wayback Machine. Here are the primary ways to add or submit your site to the Internet Archive:

1. Manual Submission via “Save Page Now”

If you want an immediate snapshot of a specific page or your homepage:

• Go to web.archive.org/save.
• Enter the full URL of your website page in the text box.
• Click Save Page.
• Quick Shortcut: You can instantly archive any page by typing [https://web.archive.org/save/](https://web.archive.org/save/) directly in front of its URL in your browser address bar (e.g., [https://web.archive.org/save/https://example.com](https://web.archive.org/save/https://example.com)).

2. Using Browser Extensions

If you plan to archive pages frequently, you can install official browser extensions (available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge):

• Install the Wayback Machine extension.
• Click the extension icon in your toolbar while viewing your site and select Save Page Now.

3. Allowing Automated Crawling (Full Site Discovery)

The Internet Archive’s web crawler (ia_archiver) automatically sweeps the public web to discover and archive entire domains over time. To ensure your whole site gets picked up organically:

• Check your robots.txt file: Make sure you aren’t blocking the user-agent ia_archiver. If your file contains Disallow: / for all bots, the crawler will skip your site.
• Build external links: The crawler discovers new domains primarily by following links from already-indexed websites. Having links to your site from blogs, social media, or directories helps the crawler find it faster.