[cmroanirgo]

And yet Eric Schmidt says (2010)* we should change our name... Because everything is always kept

https://m.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/google-ceo-eric-schmid...

* It's ironic I'm referring to a 10yr old piece to refer to the danger of continuous archives.

[quercusa]

In 2001, it was Scott McNealy :

https://nerocam.com/DrFun/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200108/df20010808.jp...

If you are not familiar with Dr. Fun: Don Knuth Finally Sells Out https://nerocam.com/DrFun/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200002/df20000210.jp...

[simonblack]

Not really, that information gradually gets bit-rot and evaporates away to nothingness as website after website gets old and vanishes.

In the early days of the Internet, I often used to Google/AltaVista/Jeeves my own name. There used to be quite a few hits. Over the years, those old hits have just faded away.

[Frenziefrenz]

That doesn't necessarily mean they disappeared, although chances are probably better that they did than didn't. Google has increasingly started incorporating recency in how it ranks search results, so if it's more than a few years old it'll fade away from Google results regardless if it's still around or not.

[simonblack]

if it's more than a few years old it'll fade away from Google results regardless if it's still around or not.

If you can't find it, it's effectively the same as if it doesn't exist.