Default

Default operations

Amber's behavior can be adjusted to fulfill the your website’s requirements. If no settings are customized, Amber's default functionality causes it to operate as follows:

1. Automatic link detection. As soon as content (for example, a post or page) is created on your website, Amber will scan its content for any outgoing links. These links will be added to queue for Amber to snapshot and preserve.
   1. If you wish snapshot the content of all links immediately, you can do so by selecting "Preserve Links Now," accessible through the article’s individual page. This option to “Preserve Links Now” will appear as a button in the "Amber" section of the individual page. Selecting this option will run the storage process immediately on all links in the post.
2. Initial link status check. Before preservation, Amber will check the status of each of the linked URLs. “Status” here means whether the link is up or down, if it allows visits from "robots," or if it is excluded by Amber. Provided that the site meets the specifications you chose, Amber will snapshot that linked URL.
3. Snapshot creation and storage. To store the linked content, Amber first checks a few parameters. As a site administrator, you can choose to exclude various websites and URLs and prevent Amber from taking a snapshot of them. You also have the ability to limit the size or type of files stored, as well as the total space you want to dedicate preserved files. Furthermore, some websites will block Amber from visiting the site (through the robots.txt file, or the Amber-specific fetcher user agent). Amber will snapshot and preserve web content given the settings you establish.
   1. If a website should fail to be preserved for any reason, the detailed report (via "Tools -> Amber Dashboard -> Export list of preserved pages") will provide a reason why the site was not stored.
4. Periodic link status checks. Periodically, Amber will check the status of each of the links.
   1. As soon as a link is added and snapshotted, Amber will schedule another check (and potential update) within one day. If the HTTP status code remains unchanged, the time between scheduled checks will be doubled. Time between checks will continue to double provided that the HTTP status code remains unchanged. However, time between visits will never exceed thirty-two days.
   2. Should the HTTP status code change between checks, the time between checks will be reset to the minimum one day interval.
5. Optional: Periodic snapshot updates. If the site administrator has enabled Amber to update snapshots periodically, it will visit every link stored and create a new snapshot of the stored content on a regular schedule.