The European Archive
Information on web archiving
In this fast moving digital age, the majority of all interaction between government and the public happens online. Websites are often the first port of call for politicians and the civil service, business and professional communities. Websites also provide a useful historical record of how our interactions with government are changing, and the context in which information is presented.
The National Archives is preserving this rich seam of information by archiving UK central government websites three times a year.
Finding pages in the Web Archive
You may be automatically redirected to a web archive if the page you're looking for is no longer current. We've put a banner at the top of each archived page so you'll know that you're no longer in a live site.The National Archives uses three main web archive collections - those held by the Internet Archive, those held by the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) and those held by the European Archive.
You can search for specific named websites using our A-Z index.
We've also categorised archived sites by major themes, such as climate change, so you may find it useful to find what you're looking for by browsing these categories.
Access to archived web pages is free - all you need is an internet connection and a web browser.
Using web archived pages
You can often use and browse archived websites as you would on a live site. Due to limitations in the software that harvests website content for archiving, sometimes search functionality can be affected, as well as interactive features that use Javascript, such as forms and questionnaires.Some of the early archived websites were collected using experimental technology and therefore only gathered partial content, often without images.
You may find that some archived websites have more than one listing. That's either because the name of the department and website have changed (for example, the Public Records Office is now The National Archives). Or it is because the website address has changed (for example, the Department of Health website was doh.gov.uk and is now dh.gov.uk).
Continuing access to online documents
Archiving websites is part of a solution to ensure continuing access to government's online documents.
We are asking government webmasters to install a simple piece of software that will redirect you if the link that you've clicked on isn't active, but the information has been captured in the web archive.
We're also providing advice to government website managers on how best to design and maintain their websites for archiving purposes as well as delivering guidance on the software that will enable more comprehensive capture of website content.
Dates covered by the Web Archive
When we entered into contract with the Internet Archive in 2003, we gained access to their back catalogue. This means that you can find some sites dating as far back as 1997.
Archiving of government websites
We originally harvested around 50 selected government web sites using a not-for-profit specialist company called Internet Archive.
Since 2005 archiving has been carried out under contract to the European Archive, a-not-for profit specialist web archiving organisation, founded to build an 'internet library' for researchers, historians and scholars.
We started taking 'snapshots' of government websites due to close under the government's website rationalisation programme, which started in January 2007 and is scheduled to run until the end of 2011. The programme aims to reduce the increasing number of government sites in order to provide a clearer and more user-friendly service for the citizen.
From November 2008 we increased our archiving activity, and now archive UK central government websites three times a year.
The National Archives is also a founder member of the UK Web Archiving Consortium, which is working to develop a common shared infrastructure for the selective archiving of websites. Other partners in the consortium are The British Library, the Wellcome Trust, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, The National Library of Wales and The National Library of Scotland. Over a two-year period, they harvested 6,000 websites.
Takedown policy
The National Archives has a takedown policy, which explains the circumstances in which material will be taken down from websites.
