[chrismorgan]

This is nonsense for querySelector and getElementById. They both query the current state of the DOM and return an Element or null. Variables can’t get deleted under you in JavaScript, so if you have a reference to a node that you remove from the DOM, it’s still the same node until you release all references and it gets garbage collected, or you put it back in the DOM.

What you’re talking about is only applicable or relevant for the methods that return collections. querySelectorAll returns a static NodeList, getElementsByName/getElementsByTagName/getElementsByClassName return live NodeLists or HTMLCollections.