## Heritrix [[Web Crawling]] > [!ai]+ Perplexity > - [WARC wiki entry](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/Write-a-wiki-1HKrsl2XTam3zJ6cxUWFzg?s=c) > > Heritrix is an open-source web crawler software designed specifically for web archiving. It was created by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving digital content. The crawler is written in Java and is available under the Apache License, which is a free software license[^1][^4]. > > ### Development and Usage > > The development of Heritrix began as a collaborative effort between the Internet Archive and the Nordic national libraries. The first official release of Heritrix was in January 2004, and since then, it has been continuously improved by the Internet Archive staff and other contributors from around the world[^1]. > > Heritrix is designed to respect the robots.txt exclusion directives and META nofollow tags, ensuring that it operates within the webmaster's guidelines. It is used by various libraries and archives, including the Library of Congress, the National Library of New Zealand, and the Smithsonian Institution Archives, to collect and preserve digital artifacts[^1][^4]. > > ### Technical Aspects > > The crawler is capable of archiving web content at a web-scale and is designed to be archival-quality, meaning that it can capture high-fidelity snapshots of the web for preservation purposes. Heritrix's main interface is accessible via a web browser, and it also offers a command-line tool for initiating crawls[^1][^4]. > > Older versions of Heritrix stored the web resources it crawled in an Arc file format, which is unrelated to the ARC file format. However, it is now more common for Heritrix to use the WARC (Web ARChive) file format, which is a more modern and flexible standard for storing web crawls[^1]. > > ### Community and Documentation > > The Heritrix project is supported by a community of users and developers who contribute to its development and documentation. More documentation on Heritrix is available on the GitHub wiki, and efforts are ongoing to edit and migrate structured guides to the Read the Docs platform[^3][^5][^6]. > > ### Challenges and Evolution > > While Heritrix was not initially the main crawler used by the Internet Archive for its web collection, with the largest contribution coming from Alexa Internet's ia_archiver, the Internet Archive has made significant performance improvements to Heritrix since 2008. Now, the Internet Archive uses Heritrix for most of its own wide-scale web crawling[^1][^8]. > > ### Conclusion > > Heritrix remains a vital tool for the task of web archiving, enabling organizations to capture and preserve the ever-changing landscape of the internet. Its open-source nature and continuous development by a dedicated community ensure that it remains up-to-date with the needs of digital preservation. > > Citations: > [^1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritrix > [^2] http://crawler.archive.org/faq.html > [^3] https://heritrix.readthedocs.io > [^4] https://github.com/internetarchive/heritrix3 > [^5] https://heritrix.readthedocs.io/_/downloads/en/latest/pdf/ > [^6] https://github.com/internetarchive/heritrix3/wiki/_history > [^7] https://app.assembla.com/wiki/show/ninja-learning/Heritrix > [^8] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Heritrix