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The internet is deciding what to forget
Do digital bananas in Hawaiian shirts chatting up pineapples need to be saved for posterity? Probably not.
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Increasingly searches online are likely to hit a dead end as the number of web pages indexed by search engines has fallen, says the writer.
PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
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Elaine Moore
The internet is so vast and all-consuming that it is easy to forget how fragile it can be. Do something embarrassing online and there is a good chance it will live there forever, shared without your consent. But not everything that is posted is permanent.
The last big study of webpages found that over a third available in 2013 were now inaccessible – leaving a trail of “link rot” in their wake.
