This wasn't happy news to read, but apparently the owner and administrator of VNDB passed away recently.

Among the VN community, a growing concern is now the future fate of his web site - which, with no one to maintain it or renew its hosting contract, could go down at any time. There is a Reddit thread all about the efforts to preserve it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/1s0g70p/thoughts_on_vndb_preservation/

I will most assuredly be downloading and digging through the released archives ASAP. Just so happens that we have a wiki here (even if it's developing very slowly) that would be happy to assimilate VNDB's info on Aojiru games.

Thank you for making this thread. Yeah, a true Legend for sure. It has to be one of the longest lasting Web ~1-2.0 era sites that's never changed nor needed to. And helped bring West and Japanese fans together. It's been a top choice for go to information any VNDB, all the way to the depths of nukige like Inyouchuu.

I hope nothing really changes and it's left in the hands of some staff that shared their vision.

Agree 100% there. Given the number of concerned people stepping in, I'd be highly willing to bet it'll stay up (whether under that name or similar). But still, not a good feeling for another pillar to crumble like that.

Gonna mess with our wiki when I get the time.

Such a shame,

As per the official announcement on VNDB about Yorhel's passing, "At the moment I can only say that we are working on certain channels to preserve the website, but cannot give much information today." From that information, it may be fair to assume that the other administrators of the site are actively working to keep things alive, and that at least would be good news; that said, I'm still downloading all the data and intend to mirror the Aojiru stuff here.

That's a good plan, thank you.