web-archive
Vefsafn.is (Icelandic Web Archive)
Iceland's national web archive, run by the National and University Library, which has harvested the entire .is domain about three times a year since 2004 and holds Iceland-related sites back to 1996. Snapshot lists come from its Memento timemap, and individual captures open as replay links on vefsafn.is, where the viewer may ask you to pass a CAPTCHA. The natural source for the history of Icelandic websites.
Why it’s useful & how it works
Vefsafn.is is the definitive record of the Icelandic web, run by the National and University Library of Iceland. It harvests the entire .is domain approximately three times a year and also includes Iceland-related sites hosted outside Iceland, with coverage stretching back to 1996 for some sites. Echo can look up whether a URL has been captured via the archive's Memento timemap, which lists all snapshot dates, and then links you to the replay viewer on vefsafn.is where you browse the saved page. The viewer may prompt you to confirm you are a human before displaying the capture.
What’s inside
The archive has harvested the full .is domain roughly three times per year since 2004, alongside selective earlier captures from 1996 onward. A precise file count or storage figure is not published by the library.
API access
Memento TimeMap https://vefsafn.is/timemap/link/ <url> (works) ; replay https://vefsafn.is/ <ts>/<url> (hCaptcha).
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- CAPTCHA HTTP 403 1.2 s (hcaptcha.com)
- Through a datacenter proxy
- CAPTCHA HTTP 403 3 s (hcaptcha.com)
- API timemap, direct
- Responded HTTP 200 1.3 s
- API timemap, through a proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 2.2 s
Did a real search return anything?
Returned results · 4468 results for the sample query · median 9.8 s · stable across runs
Benchmark coverage
Found 8 of 10 test items (80%) in the Web pages / sites cluster. Median response 401 ms.
By how well known the item is: 3/3 well-known, 3/4 mid, 2/3 obscure .
Reachability measured 2026-08-22. Search checked 2026-08-22. Benchmark run 2026-08-22.
Access
May require solving a captcha before it responds.