Please don’t delete your blog. Someone might want to read it.

As a web developer, I spend a lot of time mining the Internet for esoteric information about computer programming bugs. I often read blog posts written four or five years ago because Google listed them as relevant to the keywords I searched.

Sometimes it’s hard to find the information I need: I might have trouble articulating the problem or I don’t know that the problem has a cute, succinct name (yes, I’m talking about you Peek-A-Boo bug). I can and have spent hours searching. In those moments, I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of irrelevant information. But then I’ll find a blog post where one person has have written about a similar problem using the same keywords I am searching. It’s like that blogger has thrown me a rope. He or she might unknowingly point me in the direction of a solution.

So please don’t delete your blogs, whether they are about weddings or websites. The information might be old. You might think that your blog is an embarrassing, public reminder of a past project. (Frankly, I have a few.) But you never know; someone might find your blog, read your old posts, and be very happy that you wrote it.

Today I discovered my friend deleted her well-designed, well-written blog last week. It might not be the same as the burning of the Library of Alexander, but it’s a loss just the same and as complete.

In related matters, Sergey Brin wrote in the NYTimes about Google Books and the tragedy of losing books to fires, flooding and other disasters. He argues that Google Books preserves books for our collective good. I think Brin, who has spends his career organizing information, would agree with me about preserving your old blog.