TIL my bookmark folder had 300+ dead links from 2006

I was cleaning out my old bookmarks folder from when I ran a fan site. Clicked through maybe 50 of them. Almost all were 404 errors, parked domains, or just blank white pages. One redirect led to a crypto scam. Has anyone else gone back and realized half the old internet just vanished?

3 comments

3 Comments

barbararamirez10d agoTop Commenter

Half the old internet just vanished" really hits hard. I mean, it's not just bookmarks either. I've noticed this with stuff in real life too. Like, remember those little independent music stores or video rental places that were everywhere in the 2000s? They're just gone now, no trace. Same with those quirky local restaurants that only existed on a blog someone made in 2005. It's like a whole layer of culture just got wiped out and nobody really talks about it. Maybe it's just me but I get a weird feeling when I realize how much stuff we just let disappear without a second thought. It makes me wonder what else is going to be gone in another ten years.

riverf3410d ago

Wait, wait, did you say video rental places? Those are actually completely gone now, like I never even thought about that until you said it just now @barbararamirez. That's wild, I remember walking past them every day on my way to school and now it's like they never existed.

anthony88310d ago

Piling on because I did the exact same thing last month with an old Geocities backup. Found a link to my favorite online game from 2008 and the whole site was just a parked domain selling weird supplements. It's creepy how quickly whole corners of the web just dissolve like they were never there.