methodology / Trust & Reputation / #18
Wayback Machine site age & last snapshot
#18 · Recommended · Web Quality · weighted · Trust & Reputation · weight 0.7% · impl implemented · method v1.2.0
Web Quality factor
This factor is part of Web Quality — the weighted 0..100 score that sits above Web Standards. Its weight depends on what kind of site is being measured. Web Standards items take priority; this factor only enters the score once Web Standards passes.
- Base weight
- 0.4 applied to every site type unless overridden below
- Why this weight
- Wayback history shows the site has existed and been crawled. Same caveat as domain age.
Per-site-type overrides
| Site type | Weight | Δ vs base |
|---|---|---|
| News / Publisher | 0.7 | +0.3 |
| Personal site | 0.2 | -0.2 |
| Government | 0.6 | +0.2 |
| Media / Streaming | 0.6 | +0.2 |
Site types not listed inherit the base weight.
What this means for your business
Public web archives quietly record when your site first appeared and how often it's updated. A site with years of history reads as established; a site that just popped up reads as a pop-up.
Plain title: How long your site has been online
What we measure
We check when your site first appeared on the public web and how recently it has been updated.
How to improve your score
Keep the site fresh — recent updates signal an active business.
Implementation
stale · v1 · seeded — no connector publish yet · source: freshcoat-discovery/src/connectors/legacy-audit.ts:scoreWayback
Detection method
Resolves first/last snapshot via lookup-resolvers.ts:resolveWayback. Tier 1: D1 cache. Tier 2: archive.org CDX API (web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx with limit=1 for earliest, limit=-1 for latest). Tier 3: /wayback/available API with bare/https/https-slash URL variants. Tier 4: Memento aggregator.
Detection sources
- D1 cache (7-day TTL)
- archive.org CDX API (canonical — sorted snapshot list)
- archive.org /wayback/available API with multiple URL variants
- Memento aggregator
Scoring bands · soft ladder
| Score | Condition |
|---|---|
| 100 | first snapshot ≥10 years ago, last snapshot ≤30 days ago |
| 88 | first snapshot ≥5 years ago, recent activity |
| 70 | first snapshot ≥1 year ago |
| 30 | first snapshot <1 year ago |
Evidence-key dictionary
What every notes string the connector emits means.
Surfaces in the per-domain dossier evidence column.
age=Xy last=Yd_via_archive_org- First snapshot X years ago; latest Y days ago. archive_org source.
memento- Resolved via Memento aggregator (CDX and /available both failed).
Applicability
Recommended tier. Earlier April 2026: cloudflare.com was scoring '0.3 years' because /wayback/available is canonicalisation-sensitive. CDX API now runs first.
Changelog
- 2026-04-29 · seed Initial seed from MethodologyRegistry bootstrap.
Facts
Scoring
Scoring formulas are versioned with the methodology. The current method (v1.2.0) maps raw measurements to pass, warn, fail. Factor weights determine how much each contributes to the composite — see the methodology index for the full table.
Version history
| Version | Change | Date |
|---|---|---|
| v1.2.0 | Factor introduced. Status: live. Scoring impl: implemented. | 2026-04-25 |