Preserve your Website - Level 2

Make your website archivable  Submitting your web address to a web archiving programme is a great first step, but these programmes have limitations that mean in some cases the full website won’t be captured, particularly interactive or dynamic content. There are steps you can take to ensure as much of your website as possible is captured. This level covers some of those steps.

• Basic webpages are far easier to crawl. Bear this in mind when designing your website. Interactive elements may not work correctly when archived. Clear, easy to navigate pages will help your content stand out as well as make the site easier to archive. 

• Once your web address has been submitted and captured for the first time, use the platform you chose to check the capture. Note any pages not captured, or not fully captured. You may need to submit further web addresses to make sure the full website is preserved. 

• You can submit more than one web address from a website. You may need to do this depending on the structure of your website. 

• You can also submit the web addresses of individual images or other media resources that the web pages require to work correctly. This can help ‘patch up’ any gaps in the archived version. 

If you have any problems, contact the service you used to preserve your webpages. They will be able to provide guidance and support. 

The Internet Archive also offers a more comprehensive service that is free to community archives and can be applied for online.  

Next Steps  You may decide that you would like to archive your own website, so you have more control over what pages and content are preserved. Level three details one option for doing this. Addition options will be listed in the ‘What Next’ resource list provided with the toolkit.