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Broken links have been happening since the web began. Any time you've made any web request, there's been a SPOF(1). In fact, think back to 2002-- remember when
by iheartmemcache 17y ago
Broken links have been happening since the web began. Any time you've made any web request, there's been a SPOF(1). In fact, think back to 2002-- remember when a good number of links you'd click were dead? When was the last time in recent memory you've had that happen? In fact, I argue that the web has a lower percentage of broken links today than back in the day. In 5 years, we'll likely have even less.
(1) Yeah yeah, I know, a drastic over simplification. There's Foundry LB hardware, round-robin DNS at different sites, BGP failover, etc.
- lyime 17y agoSure, the percentage might decrease. But only because the number of total links are increasing by a ton.
- pj 17y agobroken links in the past were the result of actions of the creator of the content, however, in the case of url shorteners, the broken links are pointing to content that still exists, in the same place it was when the link was created. There's a big difference betwen that an the broken links since the web began...
- rjurney 17y agoThis is a problem google can solve pretty easily, isn't it? They've indexed both sides of the link... so they can somehow 'heal' the broken link - right?
- mseebach 17y ago> Any time you've made any web request, there's been a SPOF And when you make a request through a shortener, there are two independent SPOF's. Also, if you go to www.example.com/here/there/article and get a 404, you navigate up in the hierachy, and search for the content. If you get a 500 or server is down, you can try later. If either happens at the shortener-level, you're SOL.