The UK Web Archive is a collaboration between all of the UK's legal deposit libraries. It aims to capture all UK websites at least once a year, to preserve the content even if the site itself changes, removes content or ceases to exist.
Please note, the UK Web Archive is currently unavailable due to the British Library cyber attack in 2023. The British Library currently do not know when the service will be available again. Please see the British Library website for further information about the cyber attack. [June 2024]
The UK Web Archive is a collection of UK websites which have been preserved as a snapshot in time. It is a collaboration between all of the UK's legal deposit libraries.
Access
The UK Web Archive is freely available to anyone. Note that some material can be accessed online via the web, but some content can only be viewed in the reading rooms of Legal Deposit Libraries.
Content
The web archive collects all websites that have a UK top level domain name such as .UK, .SCOT, .WALES, .CYMRU and .LONDON plus any websites that are identified as being hosted on a server located physically in the UK via a geo-ip lookup. Additionally, if a website contains a UK postal address or the website owner confirms UK residence or place of business their website can be included.
All UK websites have been collected since 2013, with some earlier content having been collected by permission. It is important to note that the majority of the millions of websites in the UKWA, collected from 2013 onwards have been acquired under the Non-Print Legal Deposit Act, 2003. Without an additional licence from the website owner, these websites can only be viewed in the reading rooms of Legal Deposit Libraries.
Currently, there are about 15,000 websites, collected from 2004 to the present, are publicly available online as the website owners have given their consent to make them available in this way.
Searching/Browsing
Searching is available from the homepage via a single search box. You can search by full URL for particular websites, or by combining keywords and phrase using Boolean logic. The search results default to display only those items which are immediately viewable online – you can select to see all results, including those only available in the reading rooms of a legal deposit library by altering the filters on the left of the results screen. Other filters include domain, suffix, and date.
Printing/Downloading/Emailing
For results only available in the reading room of a legal deposit library, please check with the individual library. Results which are freely available online can be printed in the same way as normal websites (i.e. with variable results).
Help
Whilst there is no specific help pages within the archive, there is a detailed set of FAQs available from the home page, and also tips for searching the archive just below the search box on the home page.