| | Fri Jun 08, 2007 12:17 pm | | | | Comments: 0 Views: 61 |
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Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN use programs that search the net for web pages, documents, images and so forth. These programs are called spiders; spiders crawl over the web in search of new and updated content. When new content is found it is downloaded and indexed, or cached. This allows google to sort search results before the search is ever even submitted to them.
When you go to google and search for something like "school paper" you get a list of websites that are in some way related to the words "school paper". If you look closer you'll see a little link called "cached" at the end of every result. If you click on that link you will be taken to the website as it appears on google's web servers. A search engine's cache of webpages is permanent, and they're not the only ones doing it. There are services out there that let you browse websites that are a decade old and don't even exist anymore.
You can prevent search engine spiders and similar web applications from caching if you create your own website and have the technical knowledge to do so but if you do this then nobody will ever find your website.
If you allow you site to be open to the public anything you write on the web is permanent. In other words, any time you post information that can be found by a search engine the content you have posted is filled in multiple permanent records, even if you later decide to delete the content. When a web application or web site is to spiders and caching the damage is permanent.
There are a few places where you don't have to worry about this so much. Generally, email is fairly safe, but email providers usually hold on to your deleted mail for months after your supposed to have deleted it (read their user agreement, I can promise you it will say that). Facebook is free of caching compared to myspace, but it's not a fundamentally secure site ever since they opened up to non students. The only website I can think of that lets you be truly anonymous and free of caching is christonium.com.
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