Dead game links went from useful to scam farms in about 2 years

I've been archiving old forum links from 2015-2017 for a personal project, and the difference is wild. Back then, a dead link meant the page was gone or a simple 404, but now about 60% of those old URLs redirect to casino spam or fake download pages. Did the expired domain market just get that aggressive, or is this some automated SEO takeover thing happening to every half-decent forgotten link out there?

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maryadams1d ago

Honestly I kinda see it the other way... half those old links always led somewhere sketchy even back then, people just didn't notice cause the internet was a bigger mess. Now the bots just got better at making it look like a legit takeover instead of a random dead end.