cobweb site
noun phrase

- a website that has not been updated for a very long time

YourDictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Spider web” is typically used to refer to a web that is apparently still in use (i.e. clean), whereas “cobweb” refers to abandoned (i.e. dusty) webs.

As the phrase implies, a cobweb site is one that has been neglected for so long that it has figuratively grown cobwebs, becoming out of date. They are also referred to as ghost sites or dead web pages.

The word cobweb can be traced back to Middle English in the 1300s and derives from coppewebbe. Coppe is an Old English word for spider and is related to the Flemish coppe, Dutch spinnecop and Danish (edder)kop, all of which mean spider.

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When spiders moved from the water to the land in the Early Devonian period around 400 million years ago, they started making silk to protect their bodies and their eggs. Spiders gradually started using silk for hunting purposes, first as guide lines and signal lines, then as ground or bush webs, and eventually as the aerial webs that are familiar today. Spider webs have existed for at least 100 million years, as witnessed in a rare find of Early Cretaceous amber (Bernstein) from Sussex, southern England.*

*Adapted from: Kaston, B.J. “The evolution of spider webs”. American Zoologist.

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The World Wide Web is thus named because of its tangled and interlaced structure, said to resemble that of a spider web.

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QUOTABLE QUOTE:

‘Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive,’

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field (1808)

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation, say something like:

“It's high time that Mike updated his homepage, it looks like a COBWEB SITE.”