● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 neutral
Analysis of 657,607 old links reveals 76.7% of web content from 2009-2014 is gone
Key points
- 657,607 links from 2009-2014 were crawled in August 2026.
- 76.7% of the crawlable links did not return a loading page.
- The study used data primarily from Macedonian users of 0.mk.
- Only 21.3% of 494,781 distinct URLs loaded successfully.
Study on Web Content Longevity
A recent analysis examined 657,607 links from an old 0.mk database backup, which contained links created between 2009 and 2014. The study, conducted in August 2026, aimed to determine the survival rate of web content from that period. The links were primarily shared by users in Macedonia, offering a snapshot of a specific online community's shared content.
Significant Content Loss Identified
Of the 655,178 safe and crawlable link records, 76.7% no longer returned a loading page. Even among pages that did load, the original content was often absent, replaced by login walls, parked domains, or 'content no longer available' notices. When considering 494,781 distinct URLs, only 21.3% loaded successfully, indicating a high rate of content disappearance.
Technical Reasons for Link Failure
The study detailed the technical reasons for link failures. 55.0% of unique URLs failed at the network layer, even after retries. Another 23.7% returned an HTTP error, with 404 (Not Found) being the most common for 76,403 distinct URLs. Additionally, 29,663 URLs returned 403 or 429 errors, which could indicate content removal or crawler blocking.
Domain-Level Disappearance
At the domain level, the trend of content loss was also evident. Out of 133,605 crawlable hostnames, only 34,827 had at least one URL load successfully. The remaining 98,778 hostnames had no working URLs, further illustrating the extensive decay of web content over time.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
The daily brief
One email each morning: the day's tech stories, clustered across outlets and summarized. No account needed.
One email a day. Unsubscribe in one click, any time.
Today's brief
Spend a few minutes, get the whole day. Every topic's top stories in one hands-free rundown — listen, watch, or read the transcript.
▶ Play today's brief
New every morning, and the back catalogue is archived by date.
Reporting from
A study analyzed 657,607 links from a 0.mk database backup created between 2009 and 2014, finding that 76.7% of the content no longer loads. This research provides insight into the impermanence of web content over time, specifically for a community in Macedonia.