Link Rot

Link rot degrades the web's long-term reliability and historical record.

Causes

• Domain expiration.
• Website restructuring (URLs change).
• Content removal or archiving.
• Company shutdowns or acquisitions.
• Platform changes (social media link changes).

Impact

• Broken references in academic papers.
• Lost historical information.
• Degraded user experience (404 errors).
• SEO penalties.
• Trust erosion.

Mitigation

• Persistent identifiers (DOIs for research).
• Link checking tools (automated monitoring).
• URL redirects (maintain old URLs).
• Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
• Content archival services.

Link monitoring

• Automated link checkers (W3C Link Checker).
• Broken link reports in SEO tools.
• Regular manual audits.
• 404 error monitoring.

Best practices

• Use canonical URLs.
• Implement proper redirects (301).
• Archive important content.
• Monitor external links.
• Provide alternative references.