Rant: that archived Geocities fan site I loved is finally gone for good

I checked my old bookmarks last week to find a page about obscure 90s cartoons I used to visit all the time. The Wayback Machine had a copy from 2001 but the images were all broken and the frames wouldn't load. I tried 3 different cached versions and nothing worked right. Has anyone else lost a favorite old page that the internet archive just can't save anymore?

2 comments

2 Comments

paul3309d ago

Yeah that "tried 3 different cached versions" part hit me hard. It's like the site is already dead but the skeleton is still there teasing you. I had an old Simpsons fansite I used to visit, same deal with the broken image placeholders and the frames just showing empty gray boxes. The worst is when the JavaScript links still work but they just lead to more 404 pages. It's honestly worse than finding nothing at all, it feels like the site is rotting in front of you.

the_nathan9d ago

Right, so it's basically a digital zombie at that point. Still shambling around but missing half its parts and just rotting in place. Honestly, sometimes I think the Wayback Machine is just there to remind us how much stuff we've already lost.

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