38% of webpages from 2013 have disappeared

[Kyng]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2338264/...ernet.html

We’ve probably all encountered the infamous 404 error message at some point during our browsing. Maybe you were looking for some old forum you used to hang out on or some other handy website, but came across a dead link. They say everything on the internet lasts forever, but new research from the Pew Research Center shows that’s not quite the case.

According to the research, 38 percent of web pages that existed in 2013 were inaccessible in October 2023. Nearly a quarter of all news articles on the web, 23 percent, contain at least one dead link, whether it’s a high or low-traffic site. In the case of US government websites, 21 percent of pages have at least one dead link.

Dead links are also evident on the internet’s own encyclopedia, Wikipedia. 54 percent of Wikipedia pages have at least one dead link in their reference lists.

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I have to admit, I thought 38% was quite low - although, in reality, I expect some of the 62% that are still there will have been altered massively, and a significant amount of the original content on those will have been lost too!

Of course, the question is: how many of these pages should have been preserved, and how much of value has been lost here?

[~ True Legend ~]

There are no legal obligations to archive data after all, except for perhaps public sector companies and the government

[SpookyZalost]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2338264/...ernet.html

We’ve probably all encountered the infamous 404 error message at some point during our browsing. Maybe you were looking for some old forum you used to hang out on or some other handy website, but came across a dead link. They say everything on the internet lasts forever, but new research from the Pew Research Center shows that’s not quite the case.

According to the research, 38 percent of web pages that existed in 2013 were inaccessible in October 2023. Nearly a quarter of all news articles on the web, 23 percent, contain at least one dead link, whether it’s a high or low-traffic site. In the case of US government websites, 21 percent of pages have at least one dead link.

Dead links are also evident on the internet’s own encyclopedia, Wikipedia. 54 percent of Wikipedia pages have at least one dead link in their reference lists.

---

I have to admit, I thought 38% was quite low - although, in reality, I expect some of the 62% that are still there will have been altered massively, and a significant amount of the original content on those will have been lost too!

Of course, the question is: how many of these pages should have been preserved, and how much of value has been lost here?

This is why we have the internet archive. to keep a log of sites like these that have long since passed. Wikipedia updates often to show IA links when a site is dead/gone.

[Kyng]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2338264/...ernet.html

We’ve probably all encountered the infamous 404 error message at some point during our browsing. Maybe you were looking for some old forum you used to hang out on or some other handy website, but came across a dead link. They say everything on the internet lasts forever, but new research from the Pew Research Center shows that’s not quite the case.

According to the research, 38 percent of web pages that existed in 2013 were inaccessible in October 2023. Nearly a quarter of all news articles on the web, 23 percent, contain at least one dead link, whether it’s a high or low-traffic site. In the case of US government websites, 21 percent of pages have at least one dead link.

Dead links are also evident on the internet’s own encyclopedia, Wikipedia. 54 percent of Wikipedia pages have at least one dead link in their reference lists.

---

I have to admit, I thought 38% was quite low - although, in reality, I expect some of the 62% that are still there will have been altered massively, and a significant amount of the original content on those will have been lost too!

Of course, the question is: how many of these pages should have been preserved, and how much of value has been lost here?

This is why we have the internet archive. to keep a log of sites like these that have long since passed. Wikipedia updates often to show IA links when a site is dead/gone.

True - but, even that doesn't save everything. For example: when I look up defunct forums on there, it usually archives the main index page, but few (if any) of the threads are saved. Fine for re-living memories, but sadly no use for archiving the forum's content .

(With that being said, how many of those threads have enough long-term value to be worth archiving? Some certainly do - but I suspect not all of them!)

[SpookyZalost]

This is why we have the internet archive. to keep a log of sites like these that have long since passed. Wikipedia updates often to show IA links when a site is dead/gone.

True - but, even that doesn't save everything. For example: when I look up defunct forums on there, it usually archives the main index page, but few (if any) of the threads are saved. Fine for re-living memories, but sadly no use for archiving the forum's content .

(With that being said, how many of those threads have enough long-term value to be worth archiving? Some certainly do - but I suspect not all of them!)

True. Though you'd think the same thing about BBS systems but places like Textfiles.com exist archiving a lot of the info files that were shared around the fido net and such leading to some useful stuff like changing the DOS default text color in a hex editor. among other things. Things that would have been lost to time.