Google Memory Loss
tbray.org
Google Memory Loss
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Re: Google Memory Loss
#2It seems possible these particular articles fell out of Google's index for some other reason than they are not indexing "old" stuff. That's kind of a big leap to make without many more examples.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#3It seems possible these particular articles fell out of Google's index for some other reason than they are not indexing "old" stuff. That's kind of a big leap to make without many more examples.
We may never get to know these reasons. Moreover, from the point of view of the author they might be irrelevant. What matters is that Google is not indexing them, whereas the competition does.
(I agree looking for one's own articles is a specific case - in most other situations you'd want to know Google's reasons very badly.)
Re: Google Memory Loss
#4A few years ago they put up an old index people could, well, google in.
I wonder if they have any other index snapshots stashed away somewhere, I would love to do that again. Even if only to retrieve the urls of old homestead websites I had back then.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#5https://www.google.com/search?q="we+were+watching+the+Democr...
I can find the article this person is referring just by looking at a string of it. So the article _is_ indexed. Not sure what he is referring to.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#6This is definitely a thing. Many sites when they update take down old content that was getting few views. Many times that content is irretrievably lost.
This shows the value of actually grabbing content that you plan to use or hope to refer to in the future, rather than merely bookmarking it. And it also underscores the value of the Internet Archive.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#7I would not be surprised if google still has the data. Not sure how google handles things internally. However, google needs to pull up the results fast. So they might have 4 billion results with the word "water" in it. They only make tiny portion of that available. So if I type the words "Hot water" google it looks at the subset of pages with words "Hot" and the word "Water" So google must pull the pages that have both words quickly. So the number pages in these subsets "Water" and "Hot" must be small enough to quickly be merged/intersected. There are other things that could be done to speed it up, but I think you get the main idea.
However, what I am getting at with that simple example is for the searches to be quick google keeps these lists small. So there is a limited space due to time-constraints. So google must decide what is relevant for the available portion of their index.
However, that does not explain why other search engines don't have trouble with older sites/links. I suspect it's more of business decision than a technical one.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#8https://www.google.com/search?q="we+were+watching+the+Democr... I can find the article this person is referring just by looking at a string of it. So the article _is_ indexed. Not sure what he is referring to.
I don't see any links to https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/03/13/Rock-n-Ro... in those search results.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#9It seems possible these particular articles fell out of Google's index for some other reason than they are not indexing "old" stuff. That's kind of a big leap to make without many more examples.
We may never get to know these reasons. Moreover, from the point of view of the author they might be irrelevant. What matters is that Google is not indexing them, whereas the competition does. (I agree looking for one's own articles is a specific case - in most other situations you'd want to know Google's reasons very badly.)
I still agree that it could be any other reason the one that led google de-index that website and therefore not indexing it again.
A good review would show more profs than just websites behind the same one domain.
Interesting though, let´s see if there´s more news on this.
Re: Google Memory Loss
#10https://www.google.com/search?q="we+were+watching+the+Democr... I can find the article this person is referring just by looking at a string of it. So the article _is_ indexed. Not sure what he is referring to.
That only gives me http://inessential.com/2008/11/, not http://inessential.com/2008/11/04/that_new_sound.