Published: January 09, 2008 02:09 pm            

Web page 'graveyard': Which ones are dead?

The Internet is littered with defunct pages – but apparently they’re more of a nuisance than a problem.

The Internet is a graveyard – so to speak.

Littered all across the World Wide Web are thousands of abandoned and neglected Web sites, providing outdated information and taking up space – somewhere.

Take, for example, the Computer Information Centre’s “Year 2,000 Date Problem Support Centre.” This handy site provides loads of helpful information on making sure computer users’ hardware and software are compliant and will work into the next century. Browsers can even find answers to the question “Will the year 2,000 problem affect me?”

Likewise, blog fans can log on to “Bleach the Infamous Strawberry” – last updated Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2005 – to get the “latest” information on his (her?) latest school interview.

According to Bleach: “Today I got my interview and I had to wait for hours and hours and I was very stressed and my belly was aching and I was tired and then finally this teacher comes and calls my name and so I stand up and follow him and because Im so clumsy I just fall on the floor and go AAAAAh!”

Along with decaying blogs, some of the more common abandoned Web sites seem to exist in a terminal freeze on the popular social networking site Myspace, where users can visit pages such as the one belonging to Steve from Virginia Beach, Va.

Steve, who last visited in July 2005, “loves playing with the latest electronic gadgets! I am currently learning to program in Python. Into computer hacking and Linux. Like to work out and stay in shape.”

Likewise, 22 year-old (at least then) Kentucky resident Lisa hasn’t visited her still-functioning Myspace page since October 2004. According to her page, however, she loves Anthony, she’d like to meet Johnny Depp, and she’s “gettin ready for college @ EKU!!!”

These pages, while possibly a nuisance, can remain online for many years, said Cassie Charles, Northeastern State University Microcomputing Services Center student technical consultant.

“The Internet is such an open network that when people open these pages, it’s their choice with what to do with them,” said Charles. “They can keep them up for years and years if they can afford the bandwidth, and they don’t have to do anything with them. They can just open new ones.”

The pages generally don’t interfere with most Internet users, Charles said, but they can be an annoying clogger of search engines.

“If the sites are listing themselves on search engines like Google, it can slow down the process,” said Charles. “You have to wade through pages that are no longer found or not giving you any relevant information on what you are looking for. I don’t think it has any effect physically – with pages loading or anything like that.”

Though multitudes of now-defunct pages are floating around the Web at this very moment, according to Charles, they are just something people will have to live with.

“I’m sure some company could try to think of a way to remove them, but I don’t really see how they would go about doing it,” Charles said. “Unless they had some kind of ultimate rule over the Internet – which I don’t think anyone has.”

Just ask Bleach.

And just because a page says it was “last updated” just a few days or weeks ago, doesn’t mean it’s so. Some pages have been built to automatically change the update date – whether an update has actually been made or not.

The only way to tell is to return periodically and see if anything has changed. And you might have a long wait.

Of course, it’s a pretty good bet it’s defunct if it contains information about Y2K.



Garron Marsh writes for Tahlequah (Okla.) Daily Press.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.