Link rot explained

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 to a new address or becoming permanently unavailable. A link that no longer points to its target, often called a broken, dead, or orphaned link, is a specific form of dangling pointer.

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. Information professionals have warned that link rot could make important archival data disappear, potentially impacting the legal system and scholarship.

Commonly, broken website links may immediately redirect the user to the home page of the website, confusing users even more and resulting in it being difficult to obtain the URL of the broken link.

Prevalence

A number of studies have examined the prevalence of link rot within the World Wide Web, in academic literature that uses URLs to cite web content, and within digital libraries.

In a 2023 study of the Million Dollar Homepage external links, it was found that 27% of the links resulted in a site loading with no redirects, 45% of links have been redirected, and 28% returned various error messages.^[1]

A 2002 study suggested that link rot within digital libraries is considerably slower than on the web, finding that about 3% of the objects were no longer accessible after one year^[2] (equating to a half-life of nearly 23 years).

A 2003 study found that on the Web, about one link out of every 200 broke each week,^[3] suggesting a half-life of 138 weeks. This rate was largely confirmed by a 2016–2017 study of links in Yahoo! Directory (which had stopped updating in 2014 after 21 years of development) that found the half-life of the directory's links to be two years.^[4]

A 2004 study showed that subsets of Web links (such as those targeting specific file types or those hosted by academic institutions) could have dramatically different half-lives.^[5] The URLs selected for publication appear to have greater longevity than the average URL. A 2015 study by Weblock analyzed more than 180,000 links from references in the full-text corpora of three major open access publishers and found a half-life of about 14 years,^[6] generally confirming a 2005 study that found that half of the URLs cited in D-Lib Magazine articles were active 10 years after publication.^[7] Other studies have found higher rates of link rot in academic literature but typically suggest a half-life of four years or greater.^[8] A 2013 study in BMC Bioinformatics analyzed nearly 15,000 links in abstracts from Thomson Reuters's Web of Science citation index and found that the median lifespan of web pages was 9.3 years, and just 62% were archived.^[9] A 2021 study of external links in New York Times articles published between 1996 and 2019 found a half-life of about 15 years (with significant variance among content topics) but noted that 13% of functional links no longer lead to the original content—a phenomenon called content drift.^[10]

A 2013 study found that 49% of links in U.S. Supreme court opinions are dead.^[11]

A 2023 study looking at United States COVID-19 dashboards found that 23% of the state dashboards available in February 2021 were no longer available at the previous URLs in April 2023.^[12]

Pew Research found that, in 2023, 38% of pages from 2013 went missing. Also, in 2023, 54% of English Wikipedia articles had a dead link in the 'references' section and 23% of news articles linked to a dead URL.^[13]

Causes

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. As far back as 1999, it was noted that with the amount of material that can be stored on a hard drive, "a single disk failure could be like the burning of the library at Alexandria."^[14] A domain name's registration may lapse or be transferred to another party. Some causes will result in the link failing to find any target and returning an error such as HTTP 404. Other causes will cause a link to target content other than what was intended by the link's author.

Other reasons for broken links include:

• the restructuring of websites that causes changes in URLs (e.g. might be moved to)
• relocation of formerly free content to behind a paywall
• a change in server architecture that results in code such as PHP functioning differently
• dynamic page content such as search results that changes by design
• deletion of the target page and/or its content
• the presence of user-specific information (such as a login name) within the link
• deliberate blocking by content filters or firewalls
• the expiration of a domain name registration

Prevention and detection

Strategies for preventing link rot can focus on placing content where its likelihood of persisting is higher, 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.

The creation of URLs that will not change with time is the fundamental method of preventing link rot. Preventive planning has been championed by Tim Berners-Lee and other web pioneers.^[15]

Strategies pertaining to the authorship of links include:

• linking to primary rather than secondary sources and prioritizing stable sites
• avoiding links that point to resources on researchers' personal pages^[7]
• using clean URLs or otherwise employing URL normalization or URL canonicalization^[16]
• using permalinks and persistent identifiers such as ARKs, DOIs, Handle System references, PURLs, or content addressing^[17]
• avoiding linking to documents other than web pages^[16]
  • avoiding deep linking linking to web archives such as the Internet Archive,^[18] WebCite,^[19] archive.today, Perma.cc,^[20] Amber,^[21] or Arweave^[22]

Strategies pertaining to the protection of existing links include:

• using redirection mechanisms such as HTTP 301 to automatically refer browsers and crawlers to relocated content.
• using content management systems which can automatically update links when content within the same site is relocated or automatically replace links with canonical URLs^[23]
• integrating search resources into HTTP 404 pages^[24]

The detection of broken links may be done manually or automatically. Automated methods include plug-ins for content management systems as well as standalone broken-link checkers such as like Xenu's Link Sleuth. Automatic checking may not detect links that return a soft 404 or links that return a 200 OK response but point to content that has changed.^[25]

See also

• Archive Team, web archiving team
• Dead Internet theory
• Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia
• Digital preservation
• Infodemic
• Software rot

Further reading

• John . Markwell . David W. . Brooks . 2002 . Broken Links: The Ephemeral Nature of Educational WWW Hyperlinks . 10.1023/A:1014627511641 . Journal of Science Education and Technology . 11 . 2 . 105–108. 60802264 .
• Daniel . Gomes . Mário J. . Silva . 2006 . Modelling Information Persistence on the Web . Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Engineering . ICWE'06 . 14 September 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110716190802/http://xldb.di.fc.ul.pt/daniel/docs/papers/gomes06urlPersistence.pdf . 2011-07-16 . dead.
• Robert P. . Dellavalle . Eric J. . Hester . Lauren F. . Heilig . Amanda L. . Drake . Jeff W. . Kuntzman . Marla . Graber . Lisa M. . Schilling . 2003 . Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References . 10.1126/science.1088234 . Science . 302 . 5646 . 787–788 . 14593153. 154604929 .
• Wallace . Koehler . 1999 . An Analysis of Web Page and Web Site Constancy and Permanence . Journal of the American Society for Information Science . 50 . 2 . 162–180 . 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1999)50:2<162::AID-ASI7>3.0.CO;2-B.
• Carmine . Sellitto . 2005 . The impact of impermanent Web-located citations: A study of 123 scholarly conference publications . Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology . 56 . 7 . 695–703 . 10.1002/asi.20159. 10.1.1.473.2732.

External links

• Future-Proofing Your URIs
• Web site: Fighting Linkrot. Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant). Nielsen. Jakob. 14 June 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/20121223011620/http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980614.html. 23 December 2012.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Szymura . Sav . 2023-09-11 . Link rot: what is it and how can I prevent it? . 2024-08-02 . Wolfenden . en.
2. Michael L. . Nelson . B. Danette . Allen . 2002 . Object Persistence and Availability in Digital Libraries . 10.1045/january2002-nelson . D-Lib Magazine . 8 . 1 . free . 2019-09-24 . 2020-07-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200719044311/https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=computerscience_fac_pubs . live .
3. Dennis . Fetterly . Mark . Manasse . Marc . Najork . Janet . Wiener . 2003 . A large-scale study of the evolution of web pages . Proceedings of the 12th international conference on World Wide Web . 14 September 2010 . 9 July 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110709175020/http://www2003.org/cdrom/papers/refereed/p097/P97%20sources/p97-fetterly.html . live .
4. Web site: van der Graaf . Hans . The half-life of a link is two year . ZOMDir's blog . 2019-01-31 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20171017041901/http://blog.zomdir.com/2017/10/the-half-life-of-link-is-two-year.html . 2017-10-17.
5. Wallace . Koehler . 2004 . A longitudinal study of web pages continued: a consideration of document persistence . Information Research . 9 . 2 . 2019-01-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170911062629/http://www.informationr.net/ir/9-2/paper174.html . 2017-09-11 . live.
6. Web site: All-Time Weblock Report . August 2015 . 12 January 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304081204/https://weblock.io/report?id=all . 4 March 2016.
7. Frank . McCown . Sheffan . Chan . Michael L. . Nelson . Johan . Bollen . 2005 . The Availability and Persistence of Web References in D-Lib Magazine . dead . Proceedings of the 5th International Web Archiving Workshop and Digital Preservation (IWAW'05) . 2005-10-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120717000118/http://www.iwaw.net/05/papers/iwaw05-mccown1.pdf . 2012-07-17 .
8. Diomidis Spinellis . Diomidis . Spinellis . 2003 . The Decay and Failures of Web References . Communications of the ACM . 46 . 1 . 71–77 . 10.1145/602421.602422 . 10.1.1.12.9599 . 17750450 . 2007-09-29 . 2020-07-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200723030709/https://www.spinellis.gr/pubs/jrnl/2003-CACM-URLcite/html/urlcite.html . live .
9. Hennessey . Jason . Xijin Ge . Steven . A Cross Disciplinary Study of Link Decay and the Effectiveness of Mitigation Techniques . BMC Bioinformatics . 14 . S5 . 2013 . Suppl 14 . 10.1186/1471-2105-14-S14-S5 . 24266891 . 3851533 . free .
10. Web site: What the ephemerality of the Web means for your hyperlinks. 2021-08-02. Columbia Journalism Review. en. 2021-08-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20210802134941/https://www.cjr.org/analysis/linkrot-content-drift-new-york-times.php. live.
11. Web site: Garber . Megan . 2013-09-23 . 49% of the Links Cited in Supreme Court Decisions Are Broken . 2024-01-10 . The Atlantic . en.
12. Adams . Aaron M. . Chen . Xiang . Li . Weidong . Chuanrong . Zhang . Normalizing the pandemic: exploring the cartographic issues in state government COVID-19 dashboards . Journal of Maps . 27 July 2023 . 19 . 5 . 1–9 . 10.1080/17445647.2023.2235385. free .
13. Web site: Chapekis . Athena . Bestvater . Samuel . Remy . Emma . Rivero . Gonzalo . May 17, 2024 . When Online Content Disappears . May 19, 2024 . Pew Research Center.
14. McGranaghan . Matthew . 1999 . The Web, Cartography and Trust . Cartographic Perspectives . 32 . 3–5 . 10.14714/CP32.624 . free.
15. Web site: Tim Berners-Lee . Tim . Berners-Lee . Cool URIs Don't Change . 1998 . 2019-01-31 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20000302064802/http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI . 2000-03-02.
16. Web site: Kille . Leighton Walter . The Growing Problem of Internet "Link Rot" and Best Practices for Media and Online Publishers . Journalist's Resource, Harvard Kennedy School . 8 November 2014 . 16 January 2015 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20150112034707/http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/internet/website-linking-best-practices-media-online-publishers . 12 January 2015.
17. Sicilia, Miguel-Angel, et al. "Decentralized Persistent Identifiers: a basic model for immutable handlers ." Procedia computer science 146 (2019): 123-130.
18. Web site: Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine . 2001-03-10 . 7 October 2013 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/19970126045828/http://www.archive.org/ . 26 January 1997.
19. Gunther . Eysenbach . Mathieu . Trudel . 2005 . Going, going, still there: Using the WebCite service to permanently archive cited web pages . 10.2196/jmir.7.5.e60 . Journal of Medical Internet Research . 7 . 5 . e60 . 16403724 . 1550686 . free .
20. Zittrain . Jonathan . Albert . Kendra . Lessig . Lawrence . Perma: Scoping and Addressing the Problem of Link and Reference Rot in Legal Citations . Legal Information Management . 14 . 2 . 88–99 . 12 June 2014 . 10.1017/S1472669614000255 . 232390360 . 10 June 2020 . 1 November 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012831/https://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/forvol127_zittrain.pdf . live .
21. Web site: Harvard University's Berkman Center Releases Amber, a "Mutual Aid" Tool for Bloggers & Website Owners to Help Keep the Web Available Berkman Center. cyber.law.harvard.edu. 2016-01-28. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20160202042259/https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/99276. 2016-02-02.
22. Web site: Arweave - A community-driven ecosystem . 2023-03-15 . arweave.org . 2023-03-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230315024155/https://arweave.org/ . live .
23. Web site: Rønn-Jensen . Jesper . Software Eliminates User Errors And Linkrot . Justaddwater.dk . 2007-10-05 . 5 October 2007 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20071011033526/http://justaddwater.dk/2007/10/05/blog-software-eliminates-user-errors-and-linkrot/ . 11 October 2007.
24. Web site: Mueller . John . FYI on Google Toolbar's Latest Features . Google Webmaster Central Blog . 2007-12-14 . 9 July 2008 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20080913132848/http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/fyi-on-google-toolbars-latest-features.html . 13 September 2008.
25. Ziv . Bar-Yossef . Andrei Z. . Broder . Ravi . Kumar . Andrew . Tomkins . 2004 . Sic transit gloria telae: towards an understanding of the Web's decay . Proceedings of the 13th international conference on World Wide Web – WWW '04 . 328–337 . 10.1145/988672.988716 . 978-1581138443 . 10.1.1.1.9406.