The Most Depressing Part When A Website Dies
You know what happens when a website dies?
A website is not a organism being so it doesn't actually die like us, but as a concept what is considered a dead website is when:
- It's being terminated and ultimately closed forever, leading to the company's website or a letter that says goodbye to its users.
- It got changed to the point it's unrecognizable.
- It's so inactive compared to its gold age that it's proclaimed by its userbase as dead.
- It's so inactive by the admins that the website it's just a wasteland and, therefore, dead.
- It doesn't lead to anywhere but an error page or it doesn't exist anymore.
So that's already depressing for anyone who could remember long gone websites like Club Penguin, GeoCities, many of the YouTube's competition, your favorite pirate ship or Google Plus... no one said that ever.
To me personally it's kind of expected to see websites no longer being supported by the owners and so they choose to stop hosting them anymore. Last time I got sad when a BIG website died is when Rabb.it closed forever.
Have you ever noticed that the cases I'm talking about are with most well known websites from big organizations or companies? Of course!
Still don't know my point? Let's go back to what is considered dead by everyone.
It's being terminated and ultimately closed forever(...).
This is a common practice by the owners of a brand when they're about to end the project. If it's not holding numbers higher by the company's analysts standards then they choose to terminate the service and announce to their users that the website it's going to close.
Even if it's still doing OK by everyone they have the last word to shut down.It got changed to the point it's unrecognizable.
Yahoo, AOL, StumbleUpon and MySpace are the most well known websites that classifies this point. These had a strong userbase, these were way more different than now, these weren't just sloppy news articles like now, these were fun at some point, these offered a gateway to the unknown, these were special, these were the rulers of the Internet. So what happened?
First off, Google. They got destroyed by the competition. Back then it was OK to let go any website you were in and shape yourself to the trend because everyone was doing it. Now it's kind of hard for everyone to let go Google even by the fact it got sooo bad these last 5 years but now there isn't an influential competitor like Google back then. If no one is shaping to the next big alternative then no one will.
Only old people could still use something like Yahoo or MSN because of sensationalism.It's so inactive compared to its gold age(...).
MySpace also applies to this, and many others like DeviantArt or Digg which are no longer the ones were (like last point mentioned) but also notoriously dead by its userbase's activity. These websites are still up today but with less users, less fancy and less fun.It's so inactive by the admins(...).
Just what it says, it's not totally closed but it's totally unmaintained. Some websites like these I linked on my Links page, the perfect example is The Freebies Directory which has been inactive around 2017, or even way before than that.It doesn't lead to anywhere(...).
What it says but it's totally dead, and usually it would appear a message like "this domain is in sale" or ads, or just doesn't display anything. Literally dead.
This is the end of the post, right? Uhmm no...
See, I still have to make my point to this that actually makes me sad in so many levels.
Websites that are no longer with us anymore, and are now impostors.
It seems to only happen with independent websites or websites of small scales. All of sudden one day it goes down and the next day redirects to another, insecure page, or someone with enough money buys a domain of an already dead website and turn it into a template page that probably are there to scam people thinking the site is still alive.
Have you seen those websites that are Chinese and are about gambling? It's so disgusting.
Apparently it's a case of malicious JavaScript redirects that were compromised by either the hosts linked to those JavaScript files were hacked or FTP accounts being hacked. And seems to be to not ending soon, it's pretty rough. It happened to websites that used to exist until it died at some point and now redirects to these illegal Chinese gambling sites. Searching 'SERBU4D' in your favorite search engine will show up many compromised websites.
If you encounter a site like that close it, it's 100% a scam. A good thing about adblockers like uBlock Origin blocks already known pages like those already. If you are unaware of this extension, please install it for your browser, I beg you.
Then there's websites that seems to be still around with us but, uhm, who's gonna tell them?
I have a good example: MadeWithNotepad.com
It used to be a campaign to support web developers who were using only Notepad to build their websites. It was a community.
But a decade ago disappeared and then bought and changed two times by two different impostors.
One which was around 2017 and the site would say the title "madewithnotepad" but with another language. The design is like a WordPress page that shows many articles that probably were taken from somewhere because of how off topic these are.
Then as recently as, now, the domain probably got sold to another individual because at some point it stopped working but came back somewhat.
It's still a WordPress page but with a different design that looks more like your uninspired corporate website of today, the words are different, there are now two articles... actually one article that for some reason it's duplicated with a different title, uses stock photos from somewhere, it has links that leads to almost nowhere.
It's literally a template. But there's so much to it.
I have a feeling that the website is written by an AI. WordPress literally has an AI website builder which is just a prompt, how pathetic. Can we just laugh at how every AI automation looks and does the same? It's not just people believing they have no talent, they don't want to fail. Literally a scam. The keyword of this post is scam.
It's so sad to see that something full of good heart and emotion like the "Made With Notepad" site, being completely taken by someone with a bot, bastardize it, and possibly to scam you.
Beloved websites dies not so often, but any website could end up not being what they were, just like how some people impersonates a dead person with AI, just like zombies, just like scammers.
Imagine if we had the possibility to take ownership of bodies with our souls. The world could have been so much worse.
Surf safely the web.