Do you have an old site that you thought you had removed? Everything on the internet can be archived.
Recently, I ran across a website called Wayback Machine. It’s sort of like a time machine, for the Internet! Some people might think it’s the coolest thing, but what if there is information out their that is posted about you, or information that you have posted in the past and have come to realize that, that probably wasn’t a good idea. Now that there are more cyberstalkers out there, our information becomes more vulnerable. Stuff that we thought was fun and would do no harm, are now becoming cold realities. We all make mistakes, but why should we have to dwell with them forever? With the Wayback Machine, your information can be archived for years regardless if you took it down or requested someone to remove it.
If you have a website that you maintain, here is how you can prevent this organization and others like it from archiving and searching for your information on your website:
1. Create a .txt document and name it ‘robots’
robots.txt is a document that will tell ‘robots’ such as google or other search engines from searching your website automatically. It’s like turning the switch off so that there is no electricity coming through.
2. Now copy and paste this code into your robots.txt documentt
User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /
The first line is to idendify that you are referring to the Wayback machine, the second will tell it to disallow any robots snooping around!
3. Upload this document to your MAIN root of your website through FTP or whatever program you use to edit your web pages.That’s it!
If you are not sure how to do this, we can help. Please use this from to contact us for more help.
