Google appears to dropping older web pages from its searches:

I think Google has stopped in­dex­ing the old­er parts of the We­b. I think I can prove it. Google’s com­pe­ti­tion is do­ing bet­ter.

Ev­i­dence · This isn’t just a proof, it’s a rock-n-roll proof. Back in 2006, I pub­lished a re­view of Lou Reed’s Rock n Roll An­i­mal al­bum. Back in 2008, Brent Sim­mons pub­lished That New Sound, about The Clash’s Lon­don Calling. Here’s a chal­lenge: Can you find ei­ther of these with Google? Even if you read them first and can care­ful­ly con­jure up exact-match strings, and then use the “site:” pre­fix? I can’t.

[Up­date: Now you can, be­cause this piece went a lit­tle vi­ral. But you sure couldn’t ear­li­er in the day.]

………

Com­pe­ti­tion · Bing can find it! Duck­Duck­Go can too! Both of them can find Brent’s Lon­don Calling piece, too

This is not surprising.

They buried the date range search in 2014, and their dominance in advertising has meant that they really don’t have to compete on search around the edges.

They know that there is no meaningful alternative for getting eyeballs and ad revenue.