I keep hearing that we’re supposed to be careful about what we post online, because once something is up on the Internet, it’s there forever. But that’s not always true, going by my recent experience shifting older posts from LiveJournal over to my own site here. I’ve been doing this not just to make that older content more searchable and available, but also because of my fears that the blogging service I started with back in 2007 might vanish someday, taking those posts with it.

What I’ve discovered is that though all of my earlier posts still seem present, many of the images associated with them have vanished from the LiveJournal gallery. This means that often, all that remains are blank boxes with questions marks in the middle, such as this instance from February 26, 2010.

Luckily, I had saved all the images I’d personally uploaded, so I was able to restore that one when I added the post here.

But now that I’m up to my May 16, 2010 entry, I’ve learned I’m not always that lucky. That post included a photo of me showing off my winnings at Charlestown Races, and appeared not because I’d uploaded it to LiveJournal myself, but because I’d linked to it elsewhere. That link is now nonfunctional, which means I don’t even get a box, just a question mark where the photo would have been.

Here’s the html showing how I’d originally linked to that now-missing image. I’d put the code itself right here instead, only all you’d see then would be the same question mark. And as for the url of that link, it’s unrecognizable to me now.

So—is that photo forever lost?

Since I don’t have a copy, and since none of my friends has a copy either, my only hope for finding it is if, as we are so often warned, whatever gets online once is there forever. And as that page wasn’t saved by the Wayback Machine, I am too much of an Internet ignoramus to have any idea how to even begin tracking it down.

Do you?

If so, give a shout!