The website that was built for Google to destroy

When Matthew Rothenberg created a new website in early February, he let about two dozen people know about it through an unlikely medium: postcards.

The unorthodox method was fitting for an unorthodox website called Unindexed. It was the latest project from Rothenberg, a 35-year-old based in Brooklyn, who has created a portfolio of interactive web installations and performance art projects around technology.

Unindexed is no more. The website was coded to erase itself once Google added it to its search index. It lasted a little over three weeks, disappearing forever on Feb. 24.

Rothenberg has done stints as head of product for Flickr and Bitly but for the last couple of years has focused on consulting and his art-technology side projects. His goal for Unindexed was to create a site where people could post comments safe in the knowledge that no record of those posts would ever exist again. It was also coded to prevent Google from caching it.

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