Archive-It

Archive-It is a service that allows institutions to preserve materials they have archived from the web. It includes an online account for users to create, describe, manage, and download their web archive collections and access options to search and browse these archives. The service runs on Internet Archive’s non-profit, self-owned and operated data centers and includes forever storage of archived materials. Archive-It partners also have perpetual access to these archives, even if they choose to end their subscription.

Archive-It and the Wayback Machine both make it possible to archive web pages, however, the services differ significantly. Wayback Machine’s Save Page Now allows the public to add webpages to the overall Wayback Machine collection. Archive-It is a full-featured end-to-end suite of services for institutions collecting, managing, preserving, downloading, and providing public access to web and born-digital archival collections. Archive-It also contains tools for creating collections, managing what type of web-published content is archived and how often, adding keywords or metadata to collections, deciding whether this content is public or private, downloading your archived collections, and other custom features. The service also includes a public online collection branded for your institution, full-text search for your collections, and integrations, APIs, and connections with cataloging, preservation, and access services used by libraries, archives, and others.

Web archiving is a series of steps that work together for an end goal: interacting with a website as it looked on the day it was archived. There are examples of web archiving without non-replay purposes, such as data mining, but generally, web archiving is a process of the separate steps of capture, storage, and replay, each using different technology. Archive-It bundles these technologies together into an integrated suite. This process starts with a person kicking off a web crawler. This crawler, or bot, goes out to the live web and creates copies of the source material that makes up that web page. This includes all of the images, text, any javascript that makes the page dynamic, any CSS that gives the site its “look and feel,” etc. The crawler takes these copies, plus some site metadata (like its title) and stores everything in a WARC, or web archive file. WARC files will not automatically replay on a screen when opened; they require technology to replay them. The Archive-It replay mechanism is called Wayback.

All kinds of organizations use Archive-It, including universities and colleges, non-profits, national institutions, governments, public libraries, museums, and more. We support the diverse needs of our 1,000+ partners worldwide with flexible and custom controls for collecting materials on the web. If you’re curious how you fit in, please share your goals, and we’ll be happy to share a relevant example or scenario.

Archive-It makes it possible for you to accomplish your web archiving goals. From targeted thematic collecting to broad domain harvesting, Archive-It services can be customized, giving you complete control over the types of web content collected and how often. Partners who use the Archive-It application have access to a variety of configurable tools to ensure they only collect the content they want to archive and at the best quality possible.

Yes! Web archives in the form of ARC or WARC files (the international standard for web archive file formats) can be uploaded to your Archive-It account. This allows you to combine externally generated web archives with the web archives you build using Archive-It for a seamless user experience.

By default, all collections are available for public access from archive-it.org. Public collections are also integrated into the widely-used Wayback Machine, with metadata attributing those collections to your institution. However, in Archive-It you also have the ability to make your collections private and not appear on archive-it.org as well as the ability to provide special access to private collections for some users. Archive-It also includes a suite of APIs and other tools for integrating your web archive collections in Archive-It into your own website, library catalog, or other online access platform.

Yes, we keep two copies of all data, including one copy in the Wayback Machine.

Subscribing partners’ data is persistently stored at the Internet Archive’s data centers and made accessible based on configured privacy settings. We can remove partners’ collected data in certain circumstances, upon request.

With Archive-It, you get support so you don’t have to figure out web archiving on your own! All Archive-It subscription levels include access to our Help Center, Community Forum, and both new partner and ongoing training opportunities, all supported by a team of Web Archivists. Our Archive-It Pro subscription level includes additional advanced technical assistance – just submit a support ticket or sign up for one-on-one consultation with a Web Archivist.

An Archive-It subscription includes access to the full suite of Archive-It tools, support services, hosting and storage of your archived data, an optional public access portal for your archived websites, and the option to download your archived data at any time.

Subscription levels are based on the amount of data needed to capture your target sites in a given year. Having an idea of the number and type of sites you want to capture and the frequency at which you want to capture them will help us recommend an appropriate subscription level/data budget. Archive-It Basic and Sponsored are for partners looking to archive limited or infrequent amounts of websites, online documents or media, and without technical support. Let us know about your collecting objectives, and we can help you find the right subscription for your needs.

As a subscriber, you’ll have access to tools that control how much data is added to your subscription’s data budget. You’ll also have access to detailed crawl reports that help you visualize how your activities are performing against your budget.

Subscriptions are annual, renewable, and can start on the 1st or 15th of any month.

Things happen! If you end up needing more data than anticipated to capture everything you need, we can help you move up to the next subscription level. Data can not be rolled over, however.

Your archived data will remain stored at the Internet Archive in perpetuity. Any collections you choose to make public on Archive-It.org will remain public and any content you choose to keep private will still be accessible to you through direct links. You will also still have access to your web archive files if you decide to download them later. If you chose to rejoin at a later time, you can jump back into the same account.

Subscription costs are for the collection and storage of new data captured during the subscription period. You will not incur additional costs for storage of data collected from previous annual subscriptions.

Archive-It works with many library consortia to provide subscription discounts to their members. Discounts for multi-year subscriptions are also available. Discounts may be available for organizations that use other Internet Archive paid services or are strategic partners. Some cultural heritage organizations may be eligible to participate in our Community Webs program that provides subsidized services. The Archive-It Sponsored program gives complimentary technology and resources to mission-aligned, but financially under-resourced organizations for volunteer, citizen, and non-institutional efforts to archive web-based materials of critical importance.