How to Check Your Internet History

You can check the websites your child has been visiting online using features already available on your Internet browser – without the need to pay for pricey monitoring software. Checking your Internet history is simple, free, and only take a few minutes to do, but can give you a detailed idea of what your child is up to whenever they surf the web. Read on to learn how to check your Internet history in Internet Explorer:

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Open Up Internet Explorer
   
   Look for the Internet Explorer icon right on your desktop – it looks like a big, blue, lowercase “e” with a gold ring around it. If you can't find the icon on your desktop, then click “Start” at the bottom left-hand corner of your computer, select “All Programs,” and search for Internet Explorer in your program list.

2. Click the Gold Star Icon
   
   In the upper, left-hand corner of your toolbar, you'll see a gold star located underneath the address bar. Click the gold star; a new menu will drop down.

3. Select “History” From the Menu
   
   At the top of the drop-down menu, you will see three options: “Favorites,” “Feeds,” and “History.” If not already selected, click in “History.” If another drop-down menu appears, choose “By Date;” otherwise, the history will appear automatically.

4. Search Through the History By Day
   
   You will see a list of days, which contains the Internet history for each day your child was online. To start at the beginning, click “Today.” A list of websites that your child visited will drop down. You can review the name of each website in the drop-down list. To investigate a questionable website further, simply click the name of the website, and you will be redirected to it. Then, you can review the website's content to see if it is appropriate for your child to be viewing.

5. Continue Searching the History
   
   To close the history for a specific day, simply click the title for that day, and the drop-down menu will condense. You can continue to search your child's Internet history by clicking each day and reviewing the links in the list.

6. Search for a Specific Website in the History
   
   You can also search the history to look for specific websites. This is a great feature to see if your child has been viewing a website that you explicitly forbade them to visit. To search for particular website in the history, navigate to the menu at the top of the history list and click on the arrow next to the word “History.” On the drop-down menu, choose “Search.” Type in the name of the website you are looking for; if it appears in the history, it will pop up in the search, and you can confirm when your child viewed that website. If the search results return nothing, then it's possible your child didn't visit the website.

Tips & Warnings

• Your Internet history is not necessarily the most reliable way to check where your child has been visiting online. It's very simply to delete a website from the history list. If your child knows how to delete items from their history, this will effectively prevent it from being displayed when you later check your child's Internet activity.