There are so many virtual versions of things found in the real world. There is the virtual post office, the ubiquitous email. We can now telecommute as opposed to actually getting into a car and driving to an office, which would be pointless as there are now virtual offices. We can have conferences virtually thanks to programs like Skype. We even have virtual showrooms of actual stores where we can peruse and shop for items without leaving our homes.

This is all very fine and very, very convenient – at least for those of us who are connected. But like all progress, like all advancement there is a hidden cost. Pollution. There is pollution in the internet. Virtual pollution if you will.

The reason no one talks about it is because unlike most kinds of pollution, this pollution cannot be smelled or heard or seen. It doesn't intrude into our space, even our virtual space so why do we have to deal with it? But it's there. You know what I'm talking about. Dead sites. Websites, for whatever reason, are no longer being updated. And this pollution does have an impact on the real world.

Most of these sites are usually the results of someone who downloaded a free website builder and wanted to make a website. This person probably had a good theme for his website and thought how much fun it would be to keep it going. Creating and running a free website seems simple enough. What usually happens is that other things get in the way. Interests shift or boredom sets in or the owner finds that he or she no longer has the time to spend on it. So the site stays there, neglected and unchanged.

Why is this a problem?

For one thing the information for the website is stored in a server somewhere. That means electricity is spent in running that server which is holding information that is now obsolete and, because it is obsolete, no one is reading it.

It also increases search traffic. It lengthens the time to search for relevant topics because a searcher will be wasting time going through links that are now no longer relevant.

As information is stored but not deleted, people have to buy additional servers to meet with demand. That means an increase in actual space but, more damningly, increase in the demand for power. True servers don't take up that much space or use that much power but it all still adds up.

The thing is, the solution to this is simple. Delete your old websites. Host servers should have a clause that lets them delete materials that have not been updated after an amount of time has passed.

We should take care of our environment, even the virtual one.