Exploring the web of yesterday, today and tomorrow

An applied research initiative investigating the evolution, impact and sustainability of the web, based at the Institute for Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.

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Overbrowsing investigates how the web changes over time and what those changes reveal about its environmental impact. Using web archives as a historical record of the evolving internet, we develop methods for measuring digital growth, understanding long-term trends and informing more sustainable approaches to the design and stewardship of the web.

Our research

Paper • web-archive.txt: A well-known URI descriptor for discovering and coordinating web archives

Mahoney, D. (2026). web-archive.txt: A Well-Known URI Descriptor for Discovering and Coordinating Web Archives. (Forthcoming)

Paper • Wasteback Machine: a method for quantitative measurement of the archived web

Mahoney, D. (2026). Wasteback Machine: a method for quantitative measurement of the archived web. Information Research: An International Electronic Journal, 31 (iConf), 448-464. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31iConf64185

Presentation • The growing environmental impact of COP websites: An analysis of UNFCCC COP host country websites (1995-2026)

Mahoney, D. (2026). The growing environmental impact of COP websites: An analysis of UNFCCC COP host country websites (1995-2026). ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S), Bern Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20625259

Strata

Strata is a web app for visualising the history of websites as recorded by web archives. Using data gathered by Pluto, it draws every URL as a layer on a shared timeline, from its first archived capture to its last, revealing when pages appeared, how long they lasted and what survives today. Zoom from decades down to a single capture and open it as it was, in the archive that holds it.