★ The Starchive Blog

Notes on link rot, archiving, and not losing the page.

Research, guides, and honest comparisons on keeping a permanent record of the web pages you can't afford to lose.

How Long Does a Web Page Actually Stay Online? The Real Half-Life of a URL

You've probably heard the average web page lasts 100 days. That number is over two decades old. Here's what current research actually says about how long a page stays up — and why the decay curve matters more than any single average.

ArchiveBox vs Linkwarden vs The Starchive: Self-Hosted vs. Managed Web Archiving

ArchiveBox and Linkwarden are both excellent self-hosted archiving tools — if you're willing to run the server. Here's an honest comparison of what each actually does, and where a managed tool fits instead.

How to Archive a Reddit or Forum Thread Before It's Deleted

Reddit now blocks the Wayback Machine from saving most of its own content, and a deleted thread, banned subreddit, or shut-down forum doesn't come back. Here's what actually protects a thread you care about.

The Same Image, Stored Once: Automatic Deduplication in The Starchive

The same image gets reposted across dozens of threads on image boards and forums. Here's why we now only ever store it once per account, and what that means for your bill.

Vendor KB Article Disappeared? How to Never Lose One Again

Vendor knowledge base articles move, get renamed, or vanish outright — usually right when you need them most. Here's why it happens and how to stop losing the fix you found once.

Why a Screenshot Isn't Enough to Preserve a Web Page as Evidence

Courts are increasingly skeptical of plain screenshots. Here's what actually holds up, and why the difference matters before the page is gone.

8 Wayback Machine Alternatives for Saving a Web Page in 2026

The Wayback Machine is built for the whole web, not your one page right now. Here's what to use instead, and when the Wayback Machine is still the right call.

Link Rot Statistics 2026: How Much of the Web Actually Disappears

A look at how fast links actually die — by age, by sector, and what it means for anything you've bookmarked and never gone back to check.