Why do they lock them if the original queries are still relevant?

1. Even years later, old threads can continue to surface in search engine results, driving organic traffic from users searching for the same queries.

2. Long-standing discussions often accumulate backlinks, engagement, and keyword relevance, which increases their authority and ranking power over time.

3. If a thread is still ranking, Google and other search engines will continue crawling and indexing it. This ensures the content remains a valuable traffic source, regardless of when it was first posted.