GoKawiilBlog post urges users to personally archive websites they love before they disappear
A web archivist recounts discovering that teapuppies.com, a fansite for the Ochaken anime and toy line that had been online unchanged since 2005, had vanished and its domain was repurposed to serve online gambling ads. The author, who works professionally in web archiving, admits they never archived the site themselves despite having the tools, and uses the loss as the basis for a guide teaching readers how to back up webpages using standard formats like WARC.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The anecdote highlights how even long-running, seemingly permanent websites can disappear or be hijacked without warning, a risk familiar to digital preservation advocates. By framing archiving as something any individual can do rather than solely the job of institutions like the Internet Archive, the author suggests broader public participation could reduce reliance on centralized preservation efforts and help save niche or personally meaningful content before it's lost.
- Fansite teapuppies.com, online since 2004, was taken over and now hosts gambling ads
- The author, a professional web archivist, had not archived the site despite having the tools
- The post promotes using standard formats like WARC so individuals can personally back up websites they care about
WD My Passport External Hard Drive — If you're backing up beloved websites and digital memories before they vanish, you need reliable local storage to keep those archives safe beyond the cloud. An external drive like this gives you a physical, offline copy of your web archives that no domain lapse or server shutdown can touch. It's a simple, practical complement to any backup workflow mentioned in the article.
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Published there as: “If you love a website, back it up”
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