Study reveals internet content declines as time passes
Date
5/26/2024 5:22:32 AM
(MENAFN) A recent study has shed light on a concerning trend: the disappearance of web pages and online content as time passes. According to a report published by The Independent and viewed by Sky News Arabia, many web pages are being lost, either due to deletion or relocation of websites. The report indicates that the overall number of web pages on the Internet has decreased by 38 percent compared to those that existed in 2013 and earlier. Furthermore, the study highlights an ongoing decline, noting that the current number of web pages has decreased by 8 percent compared to those in 2023.
Conducted by the Pew Research Center, the study attributes the disappearance of web pages to various factors. Websites are often updated, leading to the removal of older content, while entire websites may be deleted, resulting in the loss of associated pages. This phenomenon has significant implications, as it means that vast amounts of important news and reference material are vanishing from the Internet.
The study reveals alarming statistics regarding broken links within web pages. Approximately 23 percent of news pages contain at least one broken link, while the percentage rises to 21 percent for government websites. Even Wikipedia, a widely used source of information, is not immune to this trend, with 54 percent of its pages containing references to non-existent links. Social media platforms also experience a similar effect, with a fifth of posts disappearing from sites within months of publication.
The study, which collected random samples of nearly one million web pages from Common Crawl, a service that archives parts of the Internet, underscores the urgent need to address the issue of disappearing online content. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, efforts to preserve and archive valuable information become increasingly vital to ensure access to accurate and comprehensive resources for future generations.
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