rteeter writes “An AP story says the Internet is littered with dead Web sites. No surprise there. But I was taken aback by this:
But just as libraries wouldn’t think of dumping musty, out-of-print books, Web designers shouldn’t rush to remove yesteryear’s castoffs, said Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Quality of the search
Well, I understand why some surfers may see dead websites as clutter that distracts from the general Google search. However, there is always (almost) valuable information on dead sites, such as contact details for people, links to software that have since disappeared, etc. Archive.org doesn’t capture all those small sites, so there is value. I often run historical searches on individuals before I do work for/with them. Often I’ll find some educational information, hobbies (such as running in marathons), spouse(s).
The analogy to out of print, musty books isn’t very good. Clean the shelves of musty books, but not out of print! Same with websites. But if someone is willing to continue to pay for a domain name and server space, more power to them.
Off with it!
I deplore all that “Internet litter.” The presence of outdated information on the sites which, coupled with the prevailing perception that anything found on the Web is accurate, poses a real problem. Also, inactive sites clutter up searches, making good information just that much harder to find. I really wish there was some way to get rid of it all.