The most all-encompassing solution today has to be the internet archive and the wayback machine. It aims to keep track of all information on the internet, and allow you to timetravel to earlier versions of any URL. This is a staggering amount of work and data. But it is a single organization and the lifework of a single individual, Brewster Kahle. I have no doubt the work of the internet archive will continue after Brewster Kahle retires. But it is a big risk to bet the history of the entire web on a single organization.
The Internet Archive isn't the only archive out there, but it is the most well-known and longest running. Other archives are:
- (http://archive.today)
- (http://perma.cc) looked at seperately here
- (http://timetravel.mementoweb.org/)
- (https://conifer.rhizome.org/)
- Original Datapod Server may be offline or serving other unrelated content
- Good trackrecord of availability
- Single organization, so it isn't a decentralized solution
- There is no good way to induce the internet archive to take a snapshot. Conifer (previously webrecorder.io) is an exception here.
- Only works on complete files / datasets