38% of decade old webpages suffer from digital decay

It’s easy to imagine that when something is on the Internet it’s there forever (this feeling goes double if it’s an embarrassing photo or a poem you wrote as a teen). However, new research shows that this is not necessarily true: 38% of web pages that existed in 2013 are no longer available due to digital decay.

ResearchA survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that digital decay occurs on a decreasing scale over time. Overall, a quarter of all web pages that existed at any time between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible.

To make this even more relevant, the further back in time you look, the higher the decay rate. While only 8% of the pages from 2023 are no longer accessible, about 38% of the pages from 2013 are no longer accessible.

The Pew Research Center took an in-depth look at what types of pages now have ‘broken links’ (links that no longer lead to a legitimate webpage) and at what rate. They found that 23% of news web pages had at least one broken link and that how much traffic the page had had no impact on the likelihood of having a broken link.

They also found that 21% of web pages on government websites had at least one broken link, as anyone who has tried to find out when their local DMV office opens can certainly attest. The breakdown in relations between local and city-level governments was even greater.

A striking statistic was that more than half (54%) wikipedia Links in the ‘References’ list of pages are broken. Wikipedia is often the starting point for anyone looking to learn something, the context is a natural springboard for deeper research, so this is undoubtedly a frustration for many.

What causes digital decay?

For the purposes of this study, the Pew Research Center looked specifically at pages that no longer exist. Perhaps the website has been removed or the page itself has been removed. Most people who were blogging in the 2000s and 2010s would have lost track of at least one website that they were definitely going to keep updated this time. If you fail to renew a domain name or your hosting fees, that website is gone.

However, beyond studies, there are other forms of digital decay. A prime example is when a web page is altered or changed so much that it, for all intents and purposes, becomes a new page at the same URL. Hacked pages are a prime example of this.

There are also web pages that are not easily accessible to some users, for example, people who are blind or visually impaired. If a screen reader can’t interpret a page, it’s essentially broken for some users.

digital decay on social media

Pew’s research also looked at how digital decay affects social media websites, particularly social media. They collected a sample of posts in spring 2023 and followed them, evaluating the state of the links they contained.

They found that about 20% of posts are no longer publicly visible just a few months after being posted. In 60% of cases, it’s because the account that posted has been deleted, suspended, or made private, and in the other 40% of cases it’s because the individual post has been deleted. or otherwise deleted.

Some factors indicated that a post on Additionally, users with default profile settings are more likely to have posts deleted.

It would be interesting if future studies could look into the digital decay rate of artificial intelligence (AI) generated content on XAs AI is a major focus for Musk and X For now and undoubtedly in the future.