How to control access to your web archives

Make a collection private or public 

You can make an entire collection "private." This means that this collection will no longer appear on your organization's landing page at archive-it.org. You can only browse it or search it when logged in to your Archive-It account. 

New collections will be set to "public" by default when they're created. You can change that setting at any time from the Collection Overview screen:  

• Click the top drop down arrow under Collection Settings.
• Select Private.
• Click Save.

Make public seeds private

You can make specific seeds private, while other seeds and the collection around them remain public. This will remove the specific seed(s) from your collection page on archive-it.org. This content will still be accessible via full text search or direct Wayback URL.

Start by navigating to your collection's Seeds tab:

• Select each seed you want to make private by clicking the check box next to it.
• Click Edit Settings.
• The Edit Seed Settings box opens.
• Click the drop down arrow under Access to toggle to private.
• Click Save.

Change private seeds back to public

You can change private seeds back to public again when you want. This will restore them as access points listed on your collection's page at archive-it.org.

Start in your collection's Seeds tab:

• Select each seed you want to make public again by clicking the check box next to it.
• Click Edit Settings.
• The Edit Seed Settings box opens.
• Click the drop down arrow under Access to toggle to Public.
• Click Save.

Provide access to a private collection

You can still provide access to private collections for audiences more select than the general public. Examples of select audiences may be institutional stakeholders or donors themselves. These collections include the same browsing and searching features that public collections have. 

Start in your collection's Overview page:

• Ensure that the top Collections Setting is set to Private.
• Copy the Private Collection Link. 
• Share that link with your patrons.
• Anyone without the link will not be able to view the collection.

The Private Collection Link is a URL with a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) code at the end. This appears where an Archive-It collection number would appear in a public collection link. For example: 

• Public collection URL: https://archive-it.org/collections/8118
• Private collection URL: https://archive-it.org/collections/[UUID]

Each UUID generated for the end of a Private Collection Link is an “obfuscated hash.” This means machines or humans can't guess it. But you can still follow the link. And you can share that link with select patrons to access a private collection page on archive-it.org.

This private collection page will include the same information that is on a public collection page. But it won't appear listed among those collections on your organization's public page at archive-it.org. On the private collection page you will see the following  disclaimer that doesn't appear on public collection pages:

Restrict access to your archives based on IP range

You can restrict access to your archived content only to users in your reading room, or another specific IP range (or ranges). The collection, seeds, and any metadata will still be visible on the public site at archive-it.org if they are public. But end-users trying to access content in Wayback from outside of the specified IP range will see an "Access Denied" message.

If you would like to restrict access to a collection, please contact us and tell us:

• The collections that you want to restrict.
• The allowed IP range(s).

Block access to certain Wayback captures

Archive-It's Web Archivists can block access to archived content in Wayback. This can be useful when erroneous content is collected by mistake or if you don't want sensitive materials discoverable through full text search.

To block access to Wayback captures you will need to contact us directly, and provide the following information:

          Collection name that you would like the restriction to apply to

          Host Name - for example, yourinstitution.org 

          URL - for example, https://www.yourinstitution.org/personal/detail 

          Date or date range - for example, June 15, 2022, or 6/14/2022-8/15/2022

To remove full text search results you will need to wait until the block is in place, then either save a test crawl or run a new One-Time or Scheduled crawl. The crawl can be on any seed(s) in the collection. Either of these actions will kick off a re-index of the full text search results for that collection, which will exclude any blocked captures. 

Related content

Provide access to your web archives from your own domain

Share seeds across collections