How Do You Keep a Link from Rotting?
What should you know about How Do You Keep a Link from Rotting? Get the answers in this feature article.
For link rot in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Link rot. Link rot (also called link death, link breaking, or reference rot) is the phenomenon of hyperlinks tending over time to cease to point to their originally targeted file, web page, or server due to that resource being relocated or becoming permanently unavailable.
What causes a link rot on a website?
Link rot can result from several occurrences. A target web page may be removed. The server that hosts the target page could fail, be removed from service, or relocate to a new domain name. A domain name’s registration may lapse or be transferred to another party.
Why is link rot a subject of research?
The rate of link rot is a subject of study and research due to its significance to the internet’s ability to preserve information. Estimates of that rate vary dramatically between studies.
What’s the best way to prevent link rot?
Strategies for preventing link rot can focus on placing content where its likelihood of persisting is strong, authoring links that are less likely to be broken, taking steps to preserve existing links, or repairing links whose targets have been relocated or removed.
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