Overview
Visitors can browse and search the contents of public collections at archive-it.org. The search function returns matches to organizations, collections, archived websites and web pages. Facets on the left help further filter results. This article will provide instructions for browsing and searching public collections.
Prerequisites:
Check Archive-It's System Status page to see if Search is working as expected.
On this page:
- Explore all collections
- Explore an organization's collections
- Explore a specific collection
- Search metadata
- Search full-text
Explore all collections
Start on our public website at archive-it.org. The top half of the screen offers 3 options for exploring public collections:
- Enter a keyword in the Explore Collections search box.
- See a list available through the Show All Collections link.
- Use the carousel arrows to advance the display of featured collections.
- Click directly on the collection name to open the collection page.
When you see a list of results, you can Narrow Your Results by clicking on the facets on the left to return a shorter list.
Explore an organization's collections
Start on archive-it.org and look towards the bottom half of the screen. You'll see 3 options to explore collecting organizations:
- Enter a keyword in the Explore Collecting Organizations search box.
- Suggested matches appear as you type.
- See a list available through the Show All Organizations link.
- Use the carousel arrows to advance the display of featured organizations.
- Click directly on the link for the organization to open the organization's page.
When the organization's page is open, you can see their public collections listed under their logo and description. You can also:
- Narrow Your Results with facets on the left from the metadata that organization has added.
- Select the Collections tab and use the search box to return results from this organization only.
- Switch the order that collections are listed in by clicking on the Sort By option.
Explore a specific collection
When a collection page is open, you will see the collection title, description, and image the organization added. Under them, you can see the URLs they have archived in that collection, along with any metadata. You can:
- Narrow Your Results with facets on the left.
- Re-order the URLs with the Sort By options of Title or URL.
- Click directly on any URL to open its Wayback calendar page.
Search metadata
Use the search box near the top to find keywords or phrases in collection or seed metadata. You are searching metadata when you're on the tabs for Collecting Organizations, Collections, or Sites.
Search full-text
You can perform a full-text search by clicking on the Search Page Text tab. Search across all public collections from the Explore page. Or narrow your search to a specific collecting organization or collection page.
Basic keyword
Enter a keyword or phrase in the main search box to do a basic keyword search. Results will be listed 20 per page with:
- Title for the web page
- Click directly on the title to open the Wayback page with the result
- Collection and/or Organization (depending on starting point)
- URL for the web page
- Date the web page was collected
- Snippet of text from the web page where the keyword or phrase appears
Use buttons for Next Page or Prev Page to page through the results 20 at a time.
Note that for full-text search, only one result will show for each host archived within your collection(s), by default. Click the More Results from [host] link at the bottom to see more results from that host.
Advanced Options
You can perform more granular full-text searches on the Search Page Text tab with the Advanced Search options available on the left:
- Contains all of:
- Returns results with all keyword terms.
- Exact phrase:
- Returns that exact string of text in results. It's like wrapping the "phrase with quotation marks."
- Not containing:
- Returns results without these keywords.
- Note that keywords also have to be entered in either of the above fields first.
- From the Host:
- Shows results from the designated host.
- Results per Host
- One document (file) per host is returned by default.
- You change that to show 5, 10, 25 or unlimited documents from a host.
- File format:
- Select specific file types only, for example, PDF or HTML.
- Note embedded files are not indexed for full-text search, for example images or video files.
- Capture date range:
- Specify date ranges for results with two sets of months and years.
- First set for the earliest results.
- Second for the latest set of results.
- To view all results after a specific month/year, leave the second set blank.
- To view all results before a specific month/year, leave the first set blank.
- To view results from only one specific month/year, select the same values for both sets.
Related content
Add, edit, and manage your metadata
How to control access to your web archives
How to access web archives from inside your Archive-It account
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