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Website Recovery Importer: recover an expired site into WordPress

The free WordPress plugin that imports an expired site rescued from the internet archive into your site: pages, posts and images, as drafts.

By SeoNova · Published · 6 min read
Website Recovery Importer plugin banner: from the Wayback archive to ready drafts in WordPress.
Website Recovery Importer plugin banner: from the Wayback archive to ready drafts in WordPress.

Picture the hard part already done. With Tesora you found an expired domain with good history, looked at its past on the internet archive and rescued its site: dozens of pages, its posts and its images. Now you have a package sitting on your disk. What now?

Moving all of that into WordPress by hand is torture: copy page by page, upload image by image, fix broken links one at a time. That is what Website Recovery Importer is for, the free plugin that does that second half for you.

What Website Recovery Importer is

It is a WordPress plugin with one very specific job: it takes the recovery package Tesora builds and imports it into your site. That package is a WXR file (WordPress’s export format) with the pages, plus a folder with their images. The plugin reads it, creates the content and places the photos where they belong.

And one thing to be clear about from the start: the plugin does not crawl or download anything from Wayback on its own. That part is Tesora’s job. The plugin only does the WordPress side, and it does it carefully.

What it does, and why that way

  • Batched, no crashes. It imports in small batches, so a site with hundreds of pages does not exhaust your server’s PHP memory or time.
  • Everything a draft. Nothing goes live on its own. Each page stays as a draft until you review it. It is the safety net against accidentally publishing content that is not yours.
  • Cleans third-party HTML. Archived content usually drags along scripts, iframes and odd code. The plugin strips it with a strict allow-list before saving.
  • Places the images. It uploads the package images and keeps the content pointing at yours, not at the dead site.
  • Rewrites internal links. It switches links from the old domain to yours, in every variant (with and without www, http and https).
  • No duplicates. If you re-import the same package, it updates instead of creating copies.
  • Stop and resume. A long import can be stopped and picked up where it left off, without starting over.
  • In your language. The screen runs in English or Spanish, with a light and dark mode.

How to use it, in four steps

  1. Tesora builds the package. You pick an expired domain with good history and Tesora prepares the recovery package from the internet archive.
  2. You install the plugin. You download it and upload it to your WordPress like any other. It is free.
  3. You feed it the package. From Tools → Website Recovery Importer you upload the ZIP, or drop it by FTP into a folder and the plugin detects it on its own.
  4. It imports as drafts. It creates the pages and posts in bulk, places the images and rewrites the links. And it stops there: the last word is yours.

There is a longer version, with screenshots, on the plugin page.

The fine print, no tricks

The content you import comes from third-party archived pages. It may be under copyright. That is why the plugin brings everything in as a draft and warns you: review ownership, trademarks and content before publishing anything. The tool saves you the mechanical work, but the responsibility for what you publish is yours.

None of this is fine print to hide from you. It is the opposite: so you know what you are getting into.

How to install it today

Right now you download it from the plugin page (a ZIP), upload it under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin and activate it. It requires WordPress 5.8+ and PHP 7.4+. It is free and open source (GPLv2).

It is under review at WordPress.org. Once approved, you will be able to install and update it straight from your WordPress plugin search, with nothing to download by hand.

Wrapping up

If Tesora is the compass that takes you to the right domain, this plugin is the moving truck: it takes what you rescued and sets it up in your house, tidy and in draft, ready for you to add your touch and publish. No copy and paste, no uploading images one by one.

Not sure where to start with all this? Read how to get started with Tesora, step by step first. And if you have questions, write to us at [email protected].

Keep reading

— The SeoNova team

Frequently asked questions

The questions we hear the most about this topic

How much does the plugin cost?
Nothing. Website Recovery Importer is free and open source (GPLv2 license). You can download it, use it and read its code without paying or signing up.
Does it publish the content on its own?
No. Everything it imports lands as a DRAFT. It never publishes anything by itself. You review each page and decide what goes live and when. This is on purpose: the content comes from third-party sites and you must review rights before publishing.
Does the plugin download things from Wayback?
No. The plugin does not crawl or download anything from the internet on its own. It only imports a package that is already prepared: the one Tesora builds by reading the internet archive. The plugin does only the WordPress side.
Do I need Tesora to use it?
For the normal flow, yes: Tesora is what builds the recovery package (a WXR file with the pages plus their images). The plugin imports any package that follows the same layout, but usually Tesora generates it.
What does my WordPress need?
WordPress 5.8 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. Nothing else. You install it like any other plugin: upload the ZIP and activate it.
Is it in the WordPress.org directory?
It is under review. In the meantime you can download it from the plugin page on seonova.pro. Once approved, you will be able to install and update it straight from WordPress.

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