Why are so many old websites hosted at universities like MIT?

811 views

I Googled for the lyrics to “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and up came [this ancient HTML document from the days of Web 2.0](https://stuff.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/poetry/poems/meanGrinch.html).

I’ve noticed that Google will often point me to these very old, rudimentary webpages that are 20 years old or so, and often hosted at American universities like MIT.

So my question is, why do these websites exist in the first place, and why do they still exist?

In: 2187

25 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The web (not the internet itself) was first created at CERN (a physics lab) as a very useful tool for sharing information, so it made sense that academic institutions would be early adopters because 1. they like sharing clever things they’ve learned 2. are full of geeks 3. have enough money to buy big servers

They often gave students a little bit of space (like a megabyte) to host their own webpages, presumably thinking PhD students would write something to do with their dissertations but of course were really just X-Files episode guides and REM fansites.

Why do they still exist? Because nobody has taken them down!

You are viewing 1 out of 25 answers, click here to view all answers.