As 2 new Goemons are announced, the site falls into hibernation with almost no updates due to lack of Goemon news and the disbandment of MTOG. The State of the Goemon address ended all plans for new site designs, and it also cut down on the frequency of updates due to a lack of reader interest in the site. All plans to finish site FAQs are ended.

After almost 200 issues, The Mystical Updater is ended. Instead, the site reports news and updates at The Mystical Ninja Club at Yahoo! Clubs (which still remains today).ADV Films announces plans to bring the Goemon anime series to America.Unfortunately, this period was the beginning of the end for the site.

Because of the almost zero-interest in Goemon in the US and overseas, goemon.com goes inactive (the site remained available, but was not updated). Though 2 Goemon games were released in Japan (for the Playstation and the GBA, with a radical new character design which is a far cry from the traditional Goemon games), consumer interest in Japan for Goemon dies. Even Konami does little to promote the games. Late in the year, it is announced that the site would close down in January.

Goemon.com finally shuts its doors on January 20th 2003, when ownership for the web address expired. Before it closed, the site managed to hit 70,000 on the hit counter, as the site survived solely on new gamers that discover the older Goemon games.

As The Mystical Ninja Club becomes the only source for Goemon information and conversation, preliminary plans are made to revive the site. The old site is discovered on The Internet Archive. The site’s files is given to the webmaster of The Rockman Robot Centre, who puts the site back up on his server for the use of club members (the site had been completely gone for 4 months). He also takes control of getting the new site up and running. In December, plans and prototypes for an all-new redesigned site are made and retooled.

The revival of the site kicks into high gear. The new design is finally settled on; it is a much cleaner and streamlined design, while being more accessible to content and tipping its hat to the old design. Work starts to create content (including new walkthroughs/FAQs) and obtain a new address, as goemon.com has since been taken.