The need for clear communication at all levels of government has never been greater. Agencies are under increasing pressure to ensure transparency, trust, and professionalism in how they communicate with the public.
At the same time, recordkeeping—one of the foundations of transparency and accountability—has become significantly more complex. Web modernization initiatives, cloud migrations, and the rapid adoption of social media and other online platforms have created a dynamic recordkeeping environment that demands a new approach—and new technology.
Digital communication channels like websites and social media profiles allow public-sector organizations to engage the public more quickly and directly than ever before. But every website update, post, comment, edit, and deletion is considered a public record and subject to open records requirements.
When websites change frequently and social media posts are edited, deleted, or go viral, manual recordkeeping processes can fall short. These gaps can leave agencies vulnerable to non-compliance, incomplete records, and public scrutiny.
The right website and social media archiving solution can offer substantial benefits to your agency:
- Improving daily workflow and reducing manual work
- Reducing the inherent risk associated with online channels
- Boosting government transparency and public engagement
- Saving your organization time, money, and resources
- Ensuring that historical data is accessible and searchable
How to Choose the Right Digital Archiving Vendor
When it comes to finding the best archiving tool for your government agency, the process of narrowing down your options can feel risky and overwhelming. How do you know which is best?
Choosing the right archiving vendor is a compliance decision, a transparency decision, and a long-term risk management decision.
To help, we’ve created a practical checklist of questions and evaluation criteria for government agencies archiving websites, social media, and other online data.
This checklist is based on vendor evaluation insights gathered from thousands of public-sector organizations. Use it to compare archiving vendors, identify gaps in your current approach, and ensure any solution you select can support open records compliance as your digital footprint continues to grow.
Government Website & Social Media Archiving Vendor Checklist
Choosing the right solution that meets all of your organization’s needs is not always straight-forward. When evaluating an archiving solution, consider these requirements and features:
1. Will it satisfy FOIA & Open Records Requirements?
Not all archiving tools are built to meet the legal and evidentiary standards required for FOIA and state open records laws. When evaluating a vendor, it’s critical to understand whether the solution can support timely, accurate, and defensible responses to records requests.
Use the questions below to assess FOIA and open records readiness:
2. How User-Friendly Is the Archiving Solution?
Implementing an archiving solution can be counterproductive if the user experience is clunky and frustrating.
When comparing solutions, consider the following qualities:Remember: The solution should be easy for non-technical staff to use.
3. Which Platforms Can You Archive?
Your agency likely has multiple accounts on multiple platforms that require monitoring and engagement.
When evaluating archiving tools, consider the following:
Remember: The vendor should keep up with all platform updates, now and in the future to ensure your records are complete.
4. Can You Monitor Social Media Accounts and Collaboration Tools?
Most organizations have established policies that define acceptable language and communication within the workplace. However, enforcing these policies effectively on social media and enterprise collaboration platforms presents a unique challenge.
With this in mind, any archiving solution should be able to facilitate platform monitoring, and ideally, even offer built-in tools that can help identify and flag inappropriate language or behavior.
Consider the following requirements when evaluating vendors:
Remember: Archiving should support compliance, risk management, and moderation—not just storage.
5. How Secure is Your Data?
It’s vital to know that your archived data is safe and secure. The last thing you want is a compromised account that leads to the authenticity and reliability of your records being brought into question.
Consider the following questions related to data security:
Remember: Archived records must be tamper-proof and secure.
6. Does the Vendor Offer Comprehensive Support?
When it comes to user experience, having comprehensive and reliable support from your vendor will give you much needed peace of mind.
Remember: Support quality matters—especially during audits, requests, or litigation.
7. What’s the Onboarding Process Like?
Before finalizing your decision, inquire about the vendor’s onboarding process. A well-structured and efficient onboarding experience is key to ensuring a smooth transition and successful implementation.
When evaluating vendors, consider the following aspects:
Remember: Implementation should be fast, guided, and low-effort for your team.
8. What’s the Pricing Model?
The pricing models employed by vendors can vary significantly.
Opting for a vendor that bases pricing on the number of records created may result in increasing costs as your online activity and engagement grows. As such, it is important to ask potential vendors:
Remember: Costs should be transparent and predictable year over year.
A well-chosen archiving vendor should reduce risk, simplify compliance, and support transparency—not create more work for your team. Using this checklist will help ensure you’re evaluating vendors on what actually matters: accuracy, defensibility, usability, and long-term reliability.
Whether you’re replacing an existing solution or implementing archiving for the first time, taking the time to ask the right questions now can prevent costly gaps and compliance challenges later.
Why Government Agencies Choose Pagefreezer
Pagefreezer helps government organizations archive websites, social media, and online communications automatically—so records are accurate, secure, and ready when they’re needed.
With Pagefreezer, government agencies can:
- Automatically archive websites and social media in native, tamper-proof format
- Capture edits, deletions, metadata, timestamps, and digital signatures
- Ensure compliance with open records and FOIA requirements
- Reduce staff time spent responding to public records requests
- Provide self-service public access through a customizable records portal
Pagefreezer is trusted by government agencies of all sizes, including major federal, state, and local organizations, to support transparency and long-term records integrity. Pagefreezer’s website archiving solution is also FedRAMP® authorized, meaning it meets the US government’s strictest standards for cloud security and continuous monitoring.
