Why there's so little left of the early Internet

We consider the material we post onto social networks as something that will always be there, just a click of a keyboard away. But the recent loss of some 12 years of music and photos on the pioneering social site MySpace – once the most popular website in the US – shows that even material stored on the biggest of sites may not be safe.

And even Google’s services are not immune. Google+, the search giant’s attempt at a Facebook-rivalling social network, closed on 2 April. Did all its users back up the photos and memories they shared on it?

“Putting your photos on Facebook is not archiving them, because one day Facebook won’t exist,” says Webber. If you have any doubt about the temporary nature of the Web, take a few minutes to trawl through the Million Dollar Homepage. It is the testament to how quickly our online past is fading away.