In today’s fast-moving digital age, we should expect some online content to disappear. Websites close, pages become outdated and hyperlinks break. This phenomenon is called digital decay.
While some churn and turnover in internet content are expected, the implications of internet decay extend beyond inconvenience. They touch on the sustainability of knowledge, the transparency of our digital records and the accessibility of valuable information for future generations.
The Reality of Digital Decay
Digital decay is not just a technical issue; it’s a reflection of the fragile infrastructure that supports much of the internet. According to recent research by the Pew Research Center, nearly 40% of webpages that existed a decade ago are no longer accessible. While some turnover is natural—old businesses close, technologies evolve and websites are redesigned—the disappearance of content, particularly from publicly funded or grant-supported initiatives, poses unique challenges.
Foundations and grantmakers play a pivotal role in supporting knowledge dissemination. Many groundbreaking projects in education, health and public policy receive funding through time-limited grants. And when their project funding ends, too often the upkeep of associated websites and digital resources ends. What happens to the wealth of information these sites provided? When they disappear, the collective knowledge they represented may vanish, leaving gaps in the historical, cultural and educational record.
Why Archiving Efforts Matter More Than Ever
In response to digital decay, digital archiving initiatives have been gaining traction. What are digital archives?
There are two types:
- Born-digital archives consist of materials created in a digital format that never existed in a physical form; examples are emails, databases, websites and digital publications.
- Digitized archives consist of materials that were originally physical, such as books, photographs, films or audio recordings, but have been converted into digital formats.
Their purpose is to collect and preserve digital materials to make them accessible for long-term use. Techniques include the use of digital storage technologies, metadata for organization and searching, and preservation methods that ensure the materials’ integrity and usability over time.
Examples of archives including the Internet Archive (nonprofit library including millions of free texts, movies, software, music and websites)—with its famous Wayback Machine (digital archive allowing users to go back in time to see how websites looked in the past)—have stepped in to preserve snapshots of the web.
The End of Term Web Archive also collects, preserves and makes accessible U.S. government websites at the end of presidential administrations. These include websites in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government to ensure these websites and data remain available for public use, researchers have reliable access to digital government records and future generations can learn from today’s decisions and policies.
These efforts, however, are piecemeal and cannot fully replicate the original intent or functionality of dynamic content. As the churn of the internet accelerates, the demand for systemic archiving strategies will only grow.
The challenge lies in prioritization and funding. While efforts to rescue or preserve content are essential, they often rely on the same limited resources that supported the content’s original creation. Without sustained funding models, even archiving itself risks becoming an uneven patchwork that preserves some content while neglecting other valuable resources.
The Cost of Quality in the Absence of Funds
The quality of our information ecosystem is tied to the availability of funding. Without adequate resources, important tasks such as content verification, regular updates and long-term preservation fall by the wayside. This can lead to the following:
- Gaps in public knowledge: Researchers, educators and the public may lose access to critical historical and contextual information when resources disappear.
- Decreased trust in information: The absence of consistent updates and maintenance may undermine confidence in digital content.
- Barriers to access: Paywalls or exclusive access models may emerge as solutions to sustain content, further restricting public access to information.
Are There Solutions?
Addressing digital decay requires collective efforts. Foundations, policymakers and technologists especially can collaborate to ensure the sustainability of important digital content. A call to action could include:
- Developing funding models for maintenance: Grant programs could allocate resources for creating content as well as ongoing upkeep and preservation.
- Encouraging open-access repositories: Centralizing and safeguarding knowledge in publicly accessible repositories could help mitigate the impact of site shutdowns.
- Investing in digital archiving: Philanthropy, governments and private organizations could expand support for digital preservation initiatives.
As we look to the future, let’s treat digital decay as both an inevitable phenomenon and a challenge that we should meet with foresight and collaboration. Think of the internet as more than a repository of fleeting content—rather, the living memory of our age. Preserving it through digital archives will require technical tasks and responsibility on all our parts—whether individuals, organizations or societies—to ensure that knowledge created today remains accessible and useful tomorrow. In an interconnected world in which information drives progress, the stakes are too high to ignore.
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