Dead Links Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College

Any large collection of web resources will eventually contain dead links. I maintain several large collections. So what do I do about dead links?

First, I apologize for their existence on my pages. I know they are inconvenient for users. When I encounter them on other people's pages, I am frustrated. Second, I fix them when I can.

How quickly I can fix dead links depends on which guide we're talking about. Here are the details.

For all my guides and indices

• I welcome email pointing out dead links. I especially welcome email pointing out the new URL for a site whose old URL is dead.
• When I know that a link is dead and when I have time, I try to discover whether the site is offline or at a new location. Roughly speaking I follow the steps I outlined in an April 1998 WireWise article.
• When I know the new URL for a dead link (often thanks to a helpful correspondent), then I fix the link the next time I revise the page.
• When I know that a link is dead but I don't know the new URL, then unfortunately I don't always have time to fix it quickly. I keep a note about it in my link database and try to act on a certain number of these notes every time I update the page. But without much more free time, or a helper, I can't promise to do more than this. Sometimes I post a query on my page next to the dead link asking my users to help.
• When I'm sure the site with a dead link has gone offline, I delete my link. But in my experience, very few sites leave the web permanently.

FOS pages

• For most these pages (such as the guide, lists, sources, timeline, and upcoming conferences), I would like to fix any dead links. I'd appreciate email pointing them out.
• I don't attempt to fix dead links in back issues of my newsletter or my list of past conferences.
• If there are dead links in recent postings to my FOS News blog, then I'd like to fix them. If there are dead links in older postings, I'll let them lie.

Guide to Philosophy on the Internet

• This page is a source for the Hippias search engine. When the Hippias crawler builds a new index, it consults my links and keeps a log of those that are unresponsive or dead. I receive this log by email about once a month. So for this guide, at least I have fairly current and complete knowledge of the dead links. What I don't have is time to fix more than a handful at each revision.
• Would anyone like to volunteer to fix dead links for this page? I haven't had a helper until now, but I'm willing to try it as an experiment. I can't pay anything but I can give credit. If you'd like to help in this cause, please let me know.

Knots on the Web

• For some reason, my knotty readers are better than my philosophy readers at pointing out dead links and even taking the time to find the new URLs for them. I thank you all.

Link pages for my courses

• During the semester when I teach a course, I not only add new links to the link page, but I fix dead links when I know about them.
• However, once the semester ends, I give them a much lower priority. This means that the link pages for courses I haven't taught in a while are likely to be thick with dead links. The next time I teach the course I try to fix every dead link and add relevant new sites put online since I taught the course last.
• When I receive email notice of a dead link on one of these pages, I reply with gratitude, file it, and (usually) act on it only when I get around to rejuvenating the page for the next iteration of the course.

Miscellaneous collections of links

• I have a few other, miscellaneous collections of links, e.g. on Nomic, search engines, guides to disciplinary guides, and undergraduage philosophy journals.
• In general I update these only when I learn about a dead link from an email correspondent. Then I try to get to it within a week or two. I generally succeed.