More Archive-It Shortcuts

We’re back with another round of shortcuts to help you get the most of your Archive-It account!

Instacrawl
You can add seeds to an existing collection- or create a new collection on the fly- and kick off a crawl all right from the Home screen.  Wrapped up into one feature, Instacrawl combines multiple steps into one.  

Automatic scoping rules
There’s also a shortcut that doesn’t need you to do anything at all.  Our automatic scoping feature is applied to some platforms that need special scoping rules, detected by the URL.  Auto scoping rules include the latest seed scoping rule recommendations, applied as the seeds are added. Then, the rules are automatically updated across all seeds whenever there is a change in the rules. A blue “plus” icon will appear next to seeds with automatic scoping rules as you add them to your collection.  For a complete list of the seed sites with automatic scoping rules and directions for applying or editing them, see: Sites with automated scoping rules. 

On the seeds page of a collection, there are a number of helpful functions found in the navigation bar in the middle of the page.  You can select multiple seeds by holding down the shift button as you select the seeds.

Edit Seeds in bulk
It’s possible to edit seeds’ crawl settings in a batch.  Simply select any number of seeds first and then click the “Edit Settings” button.  In the popup box, you can change a seed’s frequency, status, seed type, even add login credentials.  You can do the same for seed-level scope rules. If you have multiple seeds that use the same scope rules, but you might not want to implement for the entire collection (for example, limit scope rules), you can use the “Add Rules” button.  For either feature, any settings changed will apply to all selected seeds.  

Add Seed level metadata in bulk (without using a spreadsheet)
It’s also possible to select any number of seeds, and add metadata values, without accessing each seed’s setting page, or using a spreadsheet via the bulk metadata feature.  The caveat is that all the seeds must have the same set of metadata values. To use this feature, simply click “Add Metadata” on the seed page of any collection.