How often do you find yourself searching the Internet for a gift, a news story, or background on a medical issue? After a few minutes, you may visit many different websites in your quest to find the information. Along the way, you’ll likely see additional sites of interest that you’ll want to visit later — that’s why it’s helpful that your web page history is recorded by the Internet browser. Think of the history feature as virtual breadcrumbs that are left on your path to help you find your way back through the Internet forest.

The browser history feature records a list of each web page viewed and organizes the list according to your settings. Your history provides a list of web pages and acts as a directory of hyperlinks that can be clicked to send you back to a specific page. Internet Explorer 7 allows the history of web pages to be reviewed in four categories:

By Date: The history is categorized by day (Monday, Tuesday, Last Week, etc.) and each day’s listing is presented in alphabetical order.

By Site: The history for all days is combined and presented in alphabetical order. If you’ve viewed multiple pages at a common site like USATODAY.COM, the pages viewed at the common site will be presented in a list under USATODAY.COM.

By Most Visited: The history for all days is combined and displayed according to the pages that have been visited the most, from most viewed at the top to fewest viewed towards the end.

By Order Visited Today: The history is listed by sites in order viewed today with the most recent sites listed first. This listing is the most effective method to help you retrace your path of sites visited.

Word Search: You can generate a list of sites by searching the history using topical or unique words. The primary setting to consider is how many days of history to record. The maximum setting within Internet Explorer 7 is 999 days. If you select 20 days, history listings are automatically deleted when they are older than 20 days. The history listing uses a small amount of memory so the setting should be determined by your browsing habits.

There are times when you’ll want to delete your history. First, it makes sense to periodically delete the history to remove listings that are not needed, since having a shorter list makes it easier to search and find the right site. Another reason to delete your history is to prevent other computer users from reviewing the websites you’ve visited. For example, the history may spoil the fun of surprise vacation plans with your spouse. Using a public computer at a library or hotel lobby is a third reason to delete the history. It’s important to protect your privacy by deleting history that could lead identity thieves to your personal information.