Looks like DomainTools introduced a new feature/tool today. When performing Whois searches, you are now able to see historical thumbnails in addition to historical Whois changes. After exchanging emails with Jay Westerdal, I found out the difference between this new tool and the Wayback Machine at Archive.org, is that this tool takes real pictures, while Archive.org only takes HTML and possibly stores some of the pictures. This new tool will allow people to see exactly what previously existed on the home page domain name at various points in time.
According to the site, DomainTools Gold Members are the only people eligible to see the full set of thumbnails.
Historical Thumbnails – New Feature at DomainTools
Is there an opt out for people who don’t want their websites indexed by this?
***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***
Probably a robots.txt file.
This is a great tool because it would qualify as an independent and historical third party timestamp for a domain if there was ever a dispute with another party. Interestingly enough, We inquired with DomainTools last year about this very idea with one of our domains. At the time DT stated that they had the thumbnail records stored but there was no access to them. It’s great to see DT responding with tools for what the market demands and really needs.
Archive.org has been lacking for some time now with their record keeping and previous saved data disappearing.
I noticed it has been there at least a few weeks if not longer…cool but kinda misleading…makes you think thats whats still there
Here is how to exclude them from your site with robots.txt:
http://www.domaintools.com/webmasters/surveybot.php
You you don’t trust them to follow your robots.txt, you could block their IP’s in your firewall or .htaccess as well.
Regards.
@Ken
FYI, site data disappears from archive.org as soon as someone excludes it with their robots.txt.
Thanks Bahamas Hosting!
Hi Elliot, do you know any free similar services of Historical Thumbnails from Domain Tools?
Hey Krosavcheg – archive.org does it for free. Sweet service. Lost an old website’s text. Here it is 7 years later and I was able to pull it up on archive.org and use that same info that I so desperately needed! I’ve spent half a day searching for that same info on all my old hard drives. So to find it in 10 seconds was just incredible!