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There was a post here that was deleted by the author before I could write my reply. But he ended his comment with this: > You know why the web is broken? Becau

by LeonM 6y ago

There was a post here that was deleted by the author before I could write my reply. But he ended his comment with this: > You know why the web is broken? Because nobody cares. I agree with this. 404s aren't a technical problem, they are a maintenance problem. If there was time, budget or interest to fix it, the 404 wouldn't have existed in the first place.

onion2k 6y ago
404s aren't a technical problem, they are a maintenance problem. If there was time, budget or interest to fix it, the 404 wouldn't have existed in the first place. Doesn't that assume that all things on the internet are permanent? Why should that be the case? If I have a page on my website and I decide to delete it then I should be able to do that. Having links that pointed to it return a 404 is correct. 404s are useful. They convey real information. Sites that do things like 302 redirection to the home page when the link is apparently incorrect are annoying - you can never tell if the page is really gone or if the website has incorrectly bounced you to the home page.
- minikites 6y ago
  >410 Gone >Indicates that the resource requested is no longer available and will not be available again. This should be used when a resource has been intentionally removed and the resource should be purged.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Ok, that would be a better response. The point still holds true for things that a link is pointing at but aren't found for other reasons though - for example, if a storage server has failed.
    - cxr 6y ago
      > The point still holds true for [...] if a storage server has failed Still no. That kind of thing calls for a 5xx error.
- cxr 6y ago
  In addition to minikites's comment: > Sites that do things like 302 redirection to the home page when the link is apparently incorrect are annoying You seem to be operating on the assumption that this thing is doing something that it doesn't do.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    That wasn't a comment about the thing in the article. It was a comment about why 404s can be useful.
ruif 6y ago
There wasn't time, budget or interest to fix it at the point in time it broke. One never knows about a few years latter.
kickscondor 6y ago
I appreciate the author’s work on so many projects, but the quote doesn’t resonate with me. There is a new post almost every day on HN about “saving the Web” that gets voted to the top - and it has been this way for several years now. But I don’t think fixing broken links is at the top of our priority. Many links need to be broken. And I’m glad my old stuff isn’t around. Hopefully much of my new stuff will go away too. I think this is just humanity’s process - to sift through it all and hang on to the pieces people want to save.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Not for enterprise SEO or inbound marketing it isn't - I worked for part of Reed Elsevier we found 12-15% of link to the home page went to the "wrong" page. You can recover a lot of value from recovering old links that would take a lot of effort to replace.

by LeonM 6y ago

onion2k 6y ago

404s aren't a technical problem, they are a maintenance problem. If there was time, budget or interest to fix it, the 404 wouldn't have existed in the first place. Doesn't that assume that all things on the internet are permanent? Why should that be the case? If I have a page on my website and I decide to delete it then I should be able to do that. Having links that pointed to it return a 404 is correct. 404s are useful. They convey real information. Sites that do things like 302 redirection to the home page when the link is apparently incorrect are annoying - you can never tell if the page is really gone or if the website has incorrectly bounced you to the home page.

minikites 6y ago
>410 Gone >Indicates that the resource requested is no longer available and will not be available again. This should be used when a resource has been intentionally removed and the resource should be purged.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Ok, that would be a better response. The point still holds true for things that a link is pointing at but aren't found for other reasons though - for example, if a storage server has failed.
  - cxr 6y ago
    > The point still holds true for [...] if a storage server has failed Still no. That kind of thing calls for a 5xx error.
cxr 6y ago
In addition to minikites's comment: > Sites that do things like 302 redirection to the home page when the link is apparently incorrect are annoying You seem to be operating on the assumption that this thing is doing something that it doesn't do.
- onion2k 6y ago
  That wasn't a comment about the thing in the article. It was a comment about why 404s can be useful.

ruif 6y ago

There wasn't time, budget or interest to fix it at the point in time it broke. One never knows about a few years latter.

kickscondor 6y ago

I appreciate the author’s work on so many projects, but the quote doesn’t resonate with me. There is a new post almost every day on HN about “saving the Web” that gets voted to the top - and it has been this way for several years now. But I don’t think fixing broken links is at the top of our priority. Many links need to be broken. And I’m glad my old stuff isn’t around. Hopefully much of my new stuff will go away too. I think this is just humanity’s process - to sift through it all and hang on to the pieces people want to save.

C1sc0cat 6y ago
Not for enterprise SEO or inbound marketing it isn't - I worked for part of Reed Elsevier we found 12-15% of link to the home page went to the "wrong" page. You can recover a lot of value from recovering old links that would take a lot of effort to replace.