Recover an expired site into your WordPress
Tesora tells you which domain is worth reviving. This plugin does the other half: it takes what Tesora rescued from the internet archive and builds it into your WordPress, as drafts, so you review and publish at your own pace.
Website Recovery Importer · v1.2.3 · GPLv2
Free and open source. Requires WordPress 5.8+ and PHP 7.4+. Coming soon to WordPress.org.
How it works, step by step
- 1
Tesora builds the package
In Tesora you pick an expired domain with good history. Tesora reads its past on the internet archive (Wayback) and prepares a recovery package: the pages in a WXR file plus their images.
- 2
You install the plugin on your WordPress
You download the "Website Recovery Importer" plugin here and upload it to your WordPress like any other. It is free and open source.
- 3
You feed it the package
From Tools → Website Recovery Importer you upload the package (a 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 internal links. Everything lands as a DRAFT: you review and publish. It never publishes on its own.
What it does well
Batched, no crashes
It imports in small batches, so a large site does not exhaust PHP memory or time.
Everything a draft
Nothing goes live on its own. You review each page before it sees the light.
Cleans third-party HTML
It strips scripts, iframes and odd code from the archived content, with a strict allow-list.
Places the images
It uploads the package images and keeps the content pointing at them.
Rewrites the links
It switches internal 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 duplicating.
Stop and resume
You can stop a long import and pick it up where it left off, without starting over.
Your language and theme
The plugin screen runs in English or Spanish, with a light and dark mode.
The fine print, plainly
The plugin does not crawl or download anything from Wayback on its own: it only imports a package that was prepared beforehand (the one Tesora builds). It does the WordPress side, and it does it carefully.
The content comes from third-party archived pages. Review copyright, trademarks and content before publishing. That is why everything lands as a draft: the last word is always yours.