It’s Time to Take Down your Ghost Town Website

Every day I go hunting for news. Sometimes I find some great sites. Others I find nothing. But what bothers me the most is those sites that have not updated in a VERY long time. We are talking 3, 4, 5 years or more. So if you are not working on it, why not take it down?

I have to admit, there has not been much work done over on Dorkazine. Part of it is my fault, part of it is the monkeys that inhabit the site. I’m kidding - it’s all my fault (don’t blame the Monkeys). But I am working on a plan to bring content on a daily basis to Dorkazine. That will hopefully debut shortly.

I have had websites where in the past I let them lapse. My first website TOONZED (Link goes to Wayback Machine page) went strong for about a year and a half. Then work got in the way and I lost interest on drawing cartoons. Add to it my limited PHP knowledge, and by December 2003 it was ready to take down. So I did.

I also had a blog on Blogger years ago. I posted 3 or 4 items, then forgot about it. I tried to look it up, but it seems to have been removed. In fact, 2 out of 3 blogs become abandoned within the first couple months. Some blogs never get started - you just have the bloggers’ first page and that is all.

Whats even more interesting is that some of these people are paying for their “Ghost Website”. I remember my first website cost me $70 every 3 months (back in 1998). Could you imagine how much I would have paid in 10 years for a site that didn’t get updated?

Some sites do pick up the pieces and forge ahead. Take for example Drew Curtis and Fark - He registered the name in 1997, but didn’t start Fark.com until 1999. In Fark’s own words:

“…He spent the next couple of years drinking and promptly forgot all about the domain. One day in February 1999 he had an epiphany - or a really good buzz - who knows…. He was sitting in his living room, thinking long and hard about starting Fark. He decided that if he was going to do it, he would have to do it every single day. He took a deep breath, grabbed a fresh beer, and jumped in. His friends evidently told other people about Fark and it caught on like a house on fire (or that weird ass rash you don’t want to tell anyone about) and that’s how it all started.”

Websites come, websites go. It’s a Moral Imperative. Some have some great content that cannot be lost (like MacMinute.com), others could dissapear into the night without being missed. But please be responsible and clean up after yourself when you exit the Information Superhighway. Oh yeah. And turn off the lights, too. Thanks.