I run into this problem regularly. I search for something that I know exists - because I've used it before - and it is not there. Sometimes I can find it on the Wayback Machine, but often times I can't. It is gone for good. This Pew Research report (full report) is about just that - the disappearance of online content. There is a lot to digest here. For starters:
- A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible.
- 23% of news webpages contain at least one broken link, as do 21% of webpages from government sites.
Pew does not provide a solution. We know that archiving the enter Internet is not possible, especially since some content is deleted quickly (even within the same day). Is this a problem that is out of our control and that will just get worse? Is there some way that we can ensure that critical content - however defined - is preserved?
If you have ideas or resources, please drop a comment below.
