Page search

Last updated on October 25th, 2024 at 11:09 am

2. How can I search the information preserved by Arquivo.pt?

You can search:

  • by term, entering terms or expressions you want to find in the archived contents (e.g.: expo 98)
  • by address, entering the content URL to access its history (e.g.: http://www.fccn.pt)
  • using the advanced search, where you can choose other options, for instance, format or web site (e.g.: PDF report files at BBC news site)

3. What does the date displayed for each web-archived file mean?

It is the content archiving date.

Though it would be interesting to present the publication date, most of the contents on the Web do not provide this information. Therefore, it is only possible to present accurately the date on which a content was archived.

4. Are there only pages archived after 1996?

No. There is some content since 1991, although the Web has been more widespread since 1996.

We perform periodic crawls since January 2008. The only way to preserve contents published prior to that, is gathering them from external entities that have saved them over time.

5. Can I increase the number of results on the results page?

Yes.

In the advanced search page.

6. Why are there pages that do not appear in the results or  are not complete?

There are several reasons, for instance:

In “Options” use the “complete page” functionality and try to recover contents that are not in Arquivo.pt.

Use the “replay with old browser” option to reproduce the old page with an appearance closer to the original.

7. Why are some searches slow?

The more terms the query expression has, the slower is the search. We are, however, continuously improving our system.

8. What is the criterion to sort the search results?

Relevance.The ranking system uses several page features to present the most relevant results for a search.In general, a preserved page that contains the search term in its title, text, address or anchor text of incoming links is considered to be more relevant for the search.

You can learn more about the search results ranking through our publications.9. Can I obtain and save the results of a search?

9. Can I export the list of search results?

Yes. Click on  ‘Options’ select export results in an Excel table or in one of the available formats (csv, ods, txt).

10. Can I create narratives or news timelines on a topic?

Yes, using the ‘Narrative’ button, which takes you to the external Tell Me Stories service.

  • Start by entering a simple search term, such as a topic or the name of a personality.
  • Click on the ‘Narrative’ button and proceed with ‘Ok’ to the Tell Me Stories external service.
  • Wait until a timeline with related news is generated.

The processing of the narrative can be slow and its success depends on the information available and the search term, which should be as possible.