Value of archive.org entries - What's your take?

[XJ]

I am maintaining a whole variety of domains for a number of purposes, and I am contemplating the value of archive.org entries. Obviously any site that has been around for a while gets archived by those people for eternity, a fact that I slightly dislike simply because the level of today may be the noob appearance of tomorrow.

Because of that, I actually prefer to contact archive.org and block the inclusion of my sites. In contrast to a robots.txt instruction, that manual exclusion is permanent, so even if I sell a site 10 years down the road, a new owner will be unable to reverse that decision.

As a side note, the archive.org contents differs from the Google cache insofar that every update becomes a new version, so it is not just a "server offline" safety net, but truly a historical timeline of the respective domain.

What is your take on the value of archive.org entries? Do you consider them valuable? Am I missing something?

 

[XJ]

I thought I give it another try. Do you think a site being included in the Wayback Machine adds to its value?

 

[Mobi Cheap]

I thought I give it another try. Do you think a site being included in the Wayback Machine adds to its value?

Great question, IMHO.

For me it does, as long as it doesn't preclude future use in the most relevant industries.

THis is based on the assumption that in the future people would be at least as savvy about buying domains as they are now about buying cars (and yes, I know there is a very long way to go in that direction).

As you would probably agree, in business uncertainty is often worse than moderately bad news.

I would rather see a domain sitting there doing nothing for many years (that includes being parked) than no history at all.

This is obviously because I know the domain owner typically has to request exclusion in some way in order for the domain not to be included. Many more people will likely know about this in the future, or at least that is may stated assumption and caveat above so this is what my opinion is based on.

There are many possible exceptions, but I guess this is a categorical enough opinion to spark a discussion - so I'll leave it at that for now.
:imho:

 

[accent]

If you are going to sell the domain and claim traffic for a website on it then the archive will support that claim. But to your point I think a progression of development is expected and would not be seen as a negative.

I think the archive will report that the domain owner has requested that the site not be included which could raise eyebrows, it would with me.

But, I do see privacy issues with the archive as well as with Google. You work creating your content then these guys take it and use it for their own purposes. Google even puts ads on it.

 

[Name Trader]

If I'm buying a domain to resell in the future I like to see it on archive.org with real content. Not just parked pages. In my eyes, it makes it more valuable.

I think google are copyright bandits.