The Internet Archive says automated traffic is why the Wayback Machine returns 429 errors and that real users are being caught by the protections

Sources: primary, discussion
Summary: In a post dated 2026-09-15, Mark Graham, the director of the Wayback Machine, states the service has been hit by waves of high-volume automated traffic, that rate-limit protections are in place, and that the 429 message was rewritten. Graham states those protections sometimes block real people, and gives info@archive.org as the route to report a wrong block. The post names no rate limits, no thresholds and no timeline.
Why it matters: Anything built against the Wayback Machine now has an acknowledged cause for the 429 errors and no published numbers to plan retries or budgets against.
Follow-up: Track whether the Internet Archive publishes rate-limit thresholds or an API path for legitimate automated access.