§ Website archiving

Website Archiving

A screenshot in a shared drive is not a record. Sitepdf archives web pages as timestamped, retrievable snapshots, captured by the same engine that renders your PDFs, with retention you control and an API to pull any capture back on demand.

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§ 01

What website archiving actually requires

Anyone can save a copy of a page. An archive is different: it has to say what was captured, when, from which URL, and it has to still be there, unchanged and findable, when someone asks years later. That is what audit, e-discovery and regulatory retention teams mean by a record, and it is the bar consumer tools and browser extensions do not meet.

Sitepdf captures pages in managed Chromium, exactly as a visitor saw them, JavaScript and all, and stores each capture with its timestamp and source URL as an immutable snapshot under your account. Every snapshot is retrievable by id, listable by URL, and deletable when your retention policy says so. Our compliance archiving guide covers what makes a snapshot defensible.

§ 02

The archive is a side effect of work you already do

Here is the wedge: with Sitepdf, archiving is not another pipeline. Any render can be archived by adding archive=true to the call. Generate the invoice PDF, and the archived snapshot of it exists too. Save a pricing page as PDF weekly, and the dated trail of that page builds itself. One API, one bill, the document and the record from the same request.

Standalone archiving works the same way: point the call at any URL, skip the PDF if you only want the snapshot, schedule it with a cron job for continuous coverage.

§ 03

Retention that answers to your policy, not ours

Each plan carries a retention window, from 90 days to 3 years, with custom retention and legal hold on the enterprise tier. Deletion is yours: expire snapshots on schedule or delete on request, and the deletion is real. Data handling details live on the security page, and planned tiers on the pricing page. Both are stated honestly: this product is in early access, and the enterprise controls marked planned are planned, not shipped.

The API shape early access unlocks: archive only, no PDF needed.

curl https://api.sitepdf.com/v1/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SITEPDF_KEY" \
  -d url="https://example.com/terms" \
  -d output=archive

{
  "archive": {
    "id": "arc_t9s55",
    "url": "https://example.com/terms",
    "captured_at": "2026-07-11T06:40:19Z",
    "retrieve_url": "https://api.sitepdf.com/v1/archives/arc_t9s55"
  }
}

The API is in early access; this is the documented call shape it opens with. Full request and response walkthrough.

§ 04

Questions about this job

How is this different from the Wayback Machine?

The Internet Archive is a public good with its own crawl schedule; you cannot control what it captures, when, or whether it keeps it, and every capture it makes is public. Sitepdf archives what you tell it to, when you tell it to, privately, under your account, with retention you set and an API to retrieve any capture. The <a href="/wayback-machine-alternative">Wayback Machine alternative</a> page compares the two properly, including where the Internet Archive is the better choice.

Are archived snapshots really immutable?

A stored capture is never modified after write; retrieval always returns the bytes captured at the recorded time. Integrity verification, checksums exposed in the API, is on the launch roadmap and marked as planned until it ships.

Can I archive pages on a schedule?

Yes, by calling the API from any scheduler today. A built in scheduling UI is planned. Most compliance teams start with a cron job over the list of URLs their policy names.

Who can see my archives?

Only your account. Archives are private, isolated per tenant, encrypted in transit, and never used for anything except serving them back to you. Deletion on request is immediate and permanent.

§ Index

More PDF and archiving tools

§ Early access

Get on the early-access list

The API opens to the list first, in order. Early access locks the planned launch rates for 12 months. No card required, launching soon.