The History Guide is a specialist catalogue of websites related to historical science.

The catalogue provides access to intellectually selected websites related to history topics which are relevant for scholarly research or at least for an interested public. One of the main selection criteria is that a website should provide access to its own content. Such thematic websites or thematic resarch archives are described by metadata which offer their own material like publications, source materials, pictures, movies, bibliographic references etc. Single digital or digitized documents like e-books, digital theses, retro-digitized books or digital journals are not indexed.

The regional focus of the History Guide is mainly western history, especially Central and Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Irland, Canada and the United States as well as Australia and New Zealand. Websites to the history of other regions are only occasionally indexed.

1. Online portals: Only online portals with a thematic focus on history are made accessible.
2. Subject bibliographies and catalogues: Bibliographies and subject catalogues on history are indexed, general indexes and catalogues are, however, normally not included.
3. Institutions: Websites of institutions are only indexed if they are focused on a specific historical topic. For example: "The Churchill Archives Centre" is indexed as it addresses a specific historical figure but not websites of history departments, general research institutions etc.
4. Reference works: Websites with a similar function as subject specific reference works are made accessible supposed they provide contents by their own.
5. Data and statistics: Websites providing access to historical data (prosopographies, statistics etc.) are indexed.
6. Sources: Websites which are offering access to thematic focused digitized or genuin digital source materials are indexed.
7. Publications: Only websites offering a collection of publications (essays, working papers, digitized books etc.) on a specific historical issue are made accessible but not single digital publications or thematically unspecified collections or single journals.
8. Blogs: Blogs are only indexed in individual cases.
9. Thematic websites: Thematic websites or thematic research archives are only indexed if they offer access to their own content.
10. Virtual exhibitions: Virtual exhibitions are indexed if they provide access to own content.