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Graveyards of the Web

When an agency closes or a site is redesigned, its documents can vanish. These are the places they survive.

8 documents · 1976–2021 · 8 issuers

Link rot is a real threat to public records. Commissions disband, inspectors general wind down, and redesigns break every old URL. This trail collects the archives that catch what falls, and some of the documents we could reach only because they did.

  1. The first graveyard: websites of defunct federal agencies since 1997.

    1. 1997 QA-0150
      CyberCemetery · Database

      CyberCemetery: websites of defunct U.S. government agencies and commissions

      Since 1997 the University of North Texas, working with GPO, has archived the websites of federal agencies and commissions after they shut down: the 9/11 Commission, SIGIR and dozens more.

      Written 1997 Released 1997 Never classified United States Live

  2. The whole .gov web, captured at every presidential transition.

    1. 2008 QA-0149
      End of Term · Database

      End of Term Web Archive

      A consortium of libraries and archives that crawls the entire .gov web at every presidential transition since 2008, preserving pages that new administrations remove.

      Written 2008 Released 2009 Never classified United States Live

  3. Britain's legal archive of government websites.

    1. 1996 QA-0110
      TNA · Database

      UK Government Web Archive

      The National Archives' legal archive of UK government websites since 1996, including closed inquiries, abolished departments and withdrawn guidance.

      Written 1996 Released 2003 Never classified United Kingdom Live

  4. An inspector general's history that outlived its agency.

    1. 2009 QA-0076
      SIGIR · Report

      Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience (SIGIR, 2009)

      The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction's history of how more than $50 billion in U.S. reconstruction spending was planned, improvised and often wasted.

      Written Feb 2009 Released Feb 2009 Never classified United States Live

  5. sigar.mil no longer resolves; the Wayback Machine kept the report.

    1. 2021 QA-0075
      SIGAR · Report

      What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR-21-46-LL)

      SIGAR's final lessons-learned report, published as Kabul fell.

      Written Aug 2021 Released Aug 2021 Never classified United States Live

  6. NSA moved its files; the Internet Archive kept them.

    1. 1995 QA-0015
      NSA · Official history

      American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945–1989 (Thomas R. Johnson)

      The NSA's own four-volume classified history of U.S. signals intelligence from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, by agency historian Thomas R. Johnson.

      Written 1995 Released 2008 Declassified United States Live

  7. A live server full of files linked from nowhere.

    1. 1990 QA-0104
      Census · Database

      U.S. Census Bureau raw file server (www2.census.gov)

      A bare Apache directory index behind the Census website, holding decades of raw survey files, geography shapefiles, technical documentation and abandoned products that are linked from nowhere else.

      Written 1990 Released 1996 Never classified United States Live

  8. Even durable URLs move: the Senate rebuilt its site in 2024.

    1. 1976 QA-0058
      Senate · Report

      Church Committee Final Report, Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans

      The Church Committee's central finding: decades of FBI, CIA, NSA and IRS spying on Americans for political beliefs, including COINTELPRO, mail opening and watch lists.

      Written 26 Apr 1976 Released 26 Apr 1976 Never classified United States Live