Sadly, this will not be a post about recovered bookmarks unearthed from ancient societies, although that would be pretty interesting. In this case, however, I’m referring to the bookmarks in my browser (Google Chrome for life, yo). I try to keep my bookmarks fresh and current and every so often, I’ll take a moment to delete things I haven’t used for a while. This is probably a mental byproduct from my day job, since I have to maintain a public library collection and discard damaged or outdated books from the collection.

However, despite this utilitarian approach to my bookmarks folder, there are a few links that I can’t bring myself to delete even though the sites themselves are long dead. Even worse, I’ll occasionally click the link and browse the dead site for a bit, just in case there’s new life there. Case in point: Elf Only Inn, a webcomic that was last updated in 2008. The last time the author ever posted anything was in 2010 and it was to his blog to say that he wasn’t planning on coming back.

I’m not sure why I keep checking in. If the author ever glanced at his site statistics, I imagine he’d be amused (or possibly disconcerted) that there’s somebody out there still checking in five years later. Is it a vain hope that something I liked will return? Or is it just nostalgia? I’m not sure, but I’m curious to know if anybody else ever does this. So, my question to you: do you have any bookmarks that you check in from time to time even though the site itself is no longer updated?