Is Your Website Content Ready for a Regulatory Review?
Landing pages, product overviews, blogs, and downloadable materials are all subject to recordkeeping requirements. Yet website content is one of the most overlooked aspects of a firm’s compliance program. Pages change constantly; sign-offs may remain in email threads or homegrown spreadsheets, and manual PDF exports may not capture the complete content or its context. The result: compliance gaps, potential fines, and reputational risk.
ACA’s partnership with Pagefreezer automates website archiving by capturing and preserving all website updates and maintaining searchable records that support SEC and FINRA compliance.
Website recordkeeping obligations vary by firm and content type. SEC-registered investment advisers generally must retain advertisements they disseminate under ​​Rule 204-2, while FINRA members must retain covered retail and institutional communications under ​​FINRA Rule 2210 and applicable Exchange Act recordkeeping requirements.
Why Website Archiving Belongs in Your Compliance Program
Regulators treat your public-facing web content the same way they treat other business communications. SEC and FINRA recordkeeping rules require that this content be preserved in a complete, accurate, and easily retrievable form. Screenshots and PDF exports may not capture dynamic content, embedded media, metadata, change history, or approval information needed to create a complete record.
During a regulatory examination, firms should be able to locate and produce required records in a timely manner while satisfying applicable preservation requirements.
Why ACA Partnered With Pagefreezer for Website Archiving
ACA partnered with Pagefreezer to provide firms with an automated approach to capturing, preserving, and retrieving website content. Pagefreezer continuously archives website updates, dynamic content, embedded media, and downloadable files, helping firms maintain complete, searchable records without relying on manual capture processes.
What Pagefreezer Website Archiving provides for regulated firms:
- High-volume website archiving: Pagefreezer captured more than half a trillion URLs in the last 12 months
- Complete, defensible capture: Pagefreezer Website Archiving preserves every page exactly as published, with records that are searchable, exportable, and defensible in an audit
- Tamper-proof records: Every page Pagefreezer captures is preserved with digital signatures, cryptographic hash values, and timestamps, creating records that support SEC and FINRA books-and-records requirements
- Respond in minutes, not days: Create read-only third-party links and grant external regulators immediate access to tamper-proof records
- Streamlined change approvals: Replace manual PDF exports and disjointed sign-off processes with native compliance workflows and page version compare features that document website changes and keep records of approvals
- Proactive risk reduction: Document every website modification, identify unauthorized content early, and prove continuous oversight with complete records and audit logs
- Replay-ready: With Pagefreezer Website Archiving, you can view fully functional and interactive archives of your website exactly as they appeared on any historical date
- Product satisfaction: Easy to configure, uncomplicated user interface and support team that is fast, friendly, and knowledgeable about compliance archiving regulations
"Financial firms usually have strong controls over email and messaging, yet website content is often left out of the compliance program. Pagefreezer captures every website change automatically, so firms can produce complete, defensible records the moment an examiner asks."
Purpose-Built for Financial Services
Pagefreezer Website Archiving is trusted by broker-dealers, RIAs, investment advisers, and asset managers. It scales from a single corporate site to complex multi-site environments, all within one secure, searchable dashboard. Whether you manage one website or fifty, the workflow is the same: automated, continuous, and always audit-ready.
"ACA's partnership with Pagefreezer closes one of the most common gaps in firms' eComms compliance programs: the public-facing website. Paired with ACA's eComms Capture, Archive, and Surveillance solution, firms gain best-in-class, end-to-end coverage across all covered electronic communications, from internal messaging to published web content, with less manual effort and fewer compliance gaps."
Part of a Complete Communications Compliance Picture
Website archiving is most effective when it’s part of a broader communications compliance program. It complements ACA’s eComms Capture, Archive, and Surveillance solution, helping firms capture and monitor electronic communications across the channels employees use every day. Together, the solutions can give compliance teams a broader view of covered electronic communications and published website content.
Always Stay Audit-Ready
Missing records and ineffective supervision can result in penalties. With automated website archiving from Pagefreezer and ACA, firms can reduce regulatory risk and support audit readiness without increasing operational burden.
Preserve your website exactly as published while keeping it searchable, exportable, and defensible.
See how automated website archiving can help support your firm’s SEC and FINRA compliance requirements.
Have a question first? Contact us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is all website content subject to SEC or FINRA recordkeeping rules?
No. The applicable requirements depend on the firm, the content, and whether it constitutes an advertisement, retail communication, institutional communication, or another required business record.
Why may screenshots and PDFs be insufficient?
They may not preserve dynamic elements, embedded files, metadata, timestamps, change history, or the full context of a webpage. Pagefreezer Website Archiving captures all of these automatically.
What should a website archive preserve?
Depending on the firm’s obligations, an archive may need to preserve the published content, associated metadata, historical versions, linked files, and information supporting authenticity and retrieval.
How does automated archiving support examinations?
Automated website archiving tools like Pagefreezer help firms locate and produce applicable historical website records more efficiently.