It’s no secret that the digital world has revolutionized business over the past two decades or so. A lot of innovative tools and measures that define how people and businesses use the internet emerge almost every single day.
Because a large number of digital content such as social media posts and webpages are continuously created and replaced every day, businesses are now facing a new challenge in data management; data preservation.
As internet technologies evolve, issues such as outdated formats and link rot mean that businesses have to highly consider digital data preservation. There’s also the fact that content is lost at a very fast rate. As per the Chicago Community Trust, 10% of social media content is lost every year. This can put a company’s accountability and digital culture in jeopardy.
For these reasons, many companies have taken up website archiving services to preserve their digital content. Website archiving is the process of collecting and preserving web data into an archive that can be easily accessed. See more to reach out information about services.
Here are a few benefits to website archiving that businesses of all sizes should consider.
1. Creating a Data Backup
Many corporate websites have information that disappears when the site undergoes maintenance or the content is updated. Web archiving is an efficient solution to maintaining historical web records
A lot of companies tend to preserve their web content for about 10 years; some do it for much longer. This gives them access to the information regardless of what happens to their websites since the stored data will serve as a reliable backup.
For example, 2019 saw Myspace experience a major loss of content that was uploaded to the website before 2016. Myspace may not have been a dominant social media network but this meant it lost millions of digital assets in the form of pictures, videos, and songs.
It’s worth pointing out that creating a website archive is a different process as compared to a website backup. While a website backup will give your business insurance on your web files, archiving will give you more control over old content.
Good archiving software such as PageFreezer will index your web pages so you can easily access them as if they were still online. This will save you the trouble of going through copious amounts of data to get what you’re searching for. Visit the PageFreezer website if you’d like to see more of what they offer.
2. Protect the Business From False Accusations
The information posted on a company website is a vital aspect of modern business communication. It is usually considered a part of important company documentation that could mean severe legal complications for the business. As such, it is crucial that businesses maintain such records to support them in case of a lawsuit.
E-commerce sites, for instance, need to have a website archive due to the nature of the business. Consider the customer of an online fast-food company makes a claim that they read inaccurate information regarding the ingredients of one of the company’s dishes.
A company with website archiving services would have an easy time proving that the information on the website was correct otherwise the matter could escalate into a fierce legal case which could damage the reputation of the business.
3. Avoid Confrontations With the Law
A lot of companies especially in various sectors have to archive their websites for legal reasons. However, some of them dispose of data that they should be keeping as per the law. Organizations that fail to do this usually end up incurring severe penalties.
The financial sector is one field that’s highly regulated by bodies such as the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). The healthcare sector is another field that’s regulated because it involves nutritional products, medicines, and related technological devices.
The food and beverage sector also see high litigation numbers. Brands in this industry have been sued on numerous occasions for the information on product nutrition posted on their social media pages and website.
4. Keep Record of All Communications Relevant to the Business
Since email services are a crucial tool for making sure a business is productive. As such, it is very easy for a company to accumulate a large number of emails in a short time.
Unfortunately, a lot of emails will mean reduced memory in your server space and could compromise the efficiency of your email service. By archiving your emails, your primary storage requirements will not be compromised.
Archiving emails will also help you protect your company’s intellectual property since old emails contain a lot of information regarding your company.
5. Boost Your Marketing Efforts
By archiving their web content, companies can create and store navigational records of their brand journey. This not only preserves the value of the brand assets but also creates a resource that can inspire future marketing campaigns.
A website archive can also provide a marketing team with insight into what was live on the website on a certain date. When doing annual reviews, marketers can identify what marketing material resulted in a high conversion rate. This information can help them make more informed decisions.
Taking Screenshots Just Won’t Cut It
For most companies, a website is a prerequisite to set up, keep updated, and nothing more. What these companies seem to forget is that their website and social media communications are also company records and they should be preserved just like any other document.
Some organizations bear the misconception that website screenshots do a good enough job as digital asset preservation. But screenshots are still images that are impossible to interact with as you would with a website.
A website may have pictures, history, staff data, blog posts, interviews, videos, and a lot more digital content that might exist eternally. However, the data that we have available online today is short-lived and will not be as valuable in the near or distant future.
To protect their digital assets for the long-term, companies should invest in a good website archiving service like PageFreezer to create a lasting resource for their business.
