dead internet statistics 2026
how long websites, apps and online services live, counted from 7,050 graves.
updated 21 October 2026, recalculated every night
Dead websites, apps and online services in the rip.so graveyard lived a median 7 years. Social networks and social apps together lasted 5.8 years, and dead AI assistants and tools had the shortest lives, at 3 years.
~ how long does a website or app last? ~
- The median lifespan of a dead website, app or online service is 7 years. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- The average lifespan is 9 years, pulled up by a long tail of services that lasted decades. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- 35% of dead services shut down before their fifth birthday. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- 3% died within a year of launch (242 services). (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- Only 36% made it to ten years, and 9% to twenty. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
~ how long do social networks last? ~
- Dead social networks and social apps together lived a median 5.8 years (448 graves). (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- 44% of dead social networks and social apps closed within five years. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
~ which kinds of internet services die fastest? ~
- Dead AI assistants and tools had the shortest lives, a median of 3 years. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- Dead search portals lived longest, a median of 12 years. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
| category | dead | median lifespan |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistants and tools | 61 | 3 years |
| social apps | 218 | 4.6 years |
| web browsers | 106 | 5 years |
| gadgets and hardware | 494 | 5 years |
| podcasts | 49 | 5.7 years |
| discovery services | 106 | 5.9 years |
| streaming services | 382 | 5.9 years |
| games and gaming services | 789 | 6 years |
| dot-com startups | 277 | 6 years |
| search engines | 153 | 6 years |
| bookmarking | 55 | 6 years |
| web phenomena | 130 | 6.2 years |
| music services | 220 | 7 years |
| file sharing | 142 | 7 years |
| collaboration tools | 127 | 7 years |
| kids sites | 98 | 7 years |
| RSS readers | 49 | 7 years |
| online services | 773 | 7.1 years |
| messengers | 116 | 7.2 years |
| social networks | 230 | 7.4 years |
| software | 932 | 8 years |
| news sites | 361 | 8.2 years |
| media formats | 79 | 8.4 years |
| utilities | 185 | 8.4 years |
| personal homepages and blogs | 195 | 9 years |
| protocols | 93 | 9.3 years |
| ISPs and connectivity | 195 | 10 years |
| webmail | 52 | 10.5 years |
| forums and communities | 295 | 11.8 years |
| search portals | 84 | 12 years |
~ how many websites and apps shut down each year? ~
- Over the last ten full years (2016 to 2025), rip.so records an average of 295 shutdowns a year. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- 2016 was the deadliest year in the rip.so record, with 388 shutdowns. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- More services in the graveyard died in the 2010s than in any other decade: 3,384. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
| year | shutdowns |
|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | 122 |
| 2025 | 212 |
| 2024 | 265 |
| 2023 | 290 |
| 2022 | 274 |
| 2021 | 217 |
| 2020 | 266 |
| 2019 | 344 |
| 2018 | 343 |
| 2017 | 353 |
| 2016 | 388 |
| 2015 | 362 |
| 2014 | 371 |
| 2013 | 353 |
| 2012 | 366 |
| 2011 | 280 |
| 2010 | 224 |
| 2009 | 267 |
| 2008 | 194 |
| 2007 | 161 |
| 2006 | 121 |
| 2005 | 86 |
| 2004 | 82 |
| 2003 | 97 |
| 2002 | 99 |
| 2001 | 221 |
| 2000 | 137 |
| 1999 | 84 |
| 1998 | 70 |
| 1997 | 60 |
| 1996 | 62 |
| 1995 | 37 |
~ how many google products are buried here? ~
- rip.so holds 135 dead products that carry the Google name. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- A dead Google product lived a median 5.1 years. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- Microsoft has more, 157 dead products named Microsoft. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
| company | dead products by name | median lifespan |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | 157 | 6.2 years |
| 135 | 5.1 years | |
| Yahoo | 79 | 7.4 years |
| Apple | 42 | 5.4 years |
| Facebook / Meta | 39 | 2.2 years |
| Amazon | 38 | 3.9 years |
| Sony | 24 | 4.7 years |
| AOL | 22 | 6.7 years |
| Nintendo | 13 | 6.8 years |
~ what has died in 2026 so far? ~
- 122 websites, apps and services shut down in 2026 so far. (rip.so, Oct 2026)
- Microsoft Publisher 1991 - 2026
- Star Conflict 2012 - 2026
- Amazon Mechanical Turk 2005 - 2026
- Zapytaj Onet 2006 - 2026
- bokete 2008 - 2026
- PHOTOHITO 2008 - 2026
- Naver TV 2012 - 2026
- Mario Kart Tour 2019 - 2026
- LINE VOOM 2021 - 2026
- Luminary 2019 - 2026
~ how these numbers are counted ~
Every figure comes from the 7,050 dead websites, apps, games, gadgets and other products buried at rip.so that launched in 1970 or later, recalculated every night. Lifespan runs from launch to shutdown and uses the 7,050 graves with a known launch date. Where only the year of a launch or shutdown is known, the lifespan uses whole years. Only dead services are counted, so young categories cannot show long lifespans yet. Company counts include only products named after the company, so Google Reader counts and Picasa does not. rip.so is a hand-built graveyard, not a census of the whole internet, so yearly counts reflect what has been buried here so far.
~ cite these numbers ~
rip.so, "Dead Internet Statistics 2026", updated 21 October 2026, https://rip.so/dead-internet-statistics.html
The numbers and tables on this page are licensed CC BY 4.0: free to use, republish and chart, with credit to rip.so and a link back to this page. The grave pages themselves are not covered by this license.
Download the tables as CSV, regenerated every night:
- shutdowns by year dead-internet-by-year.csv
- lifespan by category dead-internet-by-category.csv
- dead products by company dead-internet-by-company.csv