Automattic and the Internet Archive Team Up To Fight Link Rot

Automattic and the Internet Archive have released a free, open-source WordPress plugin that automatically detects broken outbound links on a site and redirects visitors to archived Wayback Machine copies instead of serving them a 404 error.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer, which launched last fall and is available on WordPress.org, runs in the background scanning posts for dead links, checking for existing archived versions, and requesting new snapshots when none exist. It also archives a site's own posts whenever they are updated. If the original link comes back online, the plugin stops redirecting.

Pew Research has found that 38% of the web has disappeared over the past decade, and WordPress powers more than 40% of websites online.

what about the false linking?

[iluvcrap2000]

Seen several times that Internet archive has been used as a source for false linking. Seems like they need a overhaul of their security measures. links to it are used to redirect to other sites that are quesitonable.

Re:

[allo]

What should be false? You put the archive URL before the link and get the archived version. You still see the link of what was archived in the URL.

Re:

[iluvcrap2000]

not when it send you to another site you don't want.

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[allo]

archive.org does not send you to other sites. You put https://web.archive.org/ [archive.org] in front of the URL and get the archived version of the URL after that.

seems risky

[bugs2squash]

If a user percieves the archive to be current material it may lead to confusion. Better the 404 error perhaps sometimes

been thinking of doing this for drupal

[drinkypoo]

I used to use weblinks module that did this but it fell out of favor. Now it makes more sense just to scan contents for dead links.

Re:

[CrankyFool]

When you refer to "my cash register," you mean The Internet Archive? Is that right?

Re: What a Great Idea!

[drinkypoo]

Tell your lawyer to suck MY dick.

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[Zero__Kelvin]

It's a Wordpress plugin dipshit. Don't install it and enable it on your site, if you even use Wordpress as your CMS, which I doubt.

Why do I need a plugin for that?

[gweihir]

This happens rarely enough that a) being aware is valuable and b) doing it manually is really not a problem.

Re:

[Aristos Mazer]

This plugin is on the server side, not the client side. It's so that wordpress authors can proof their sites against pulled content.

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[TheWho79]

Because we need to legitimize copyright theft. Nothing does that better than archive.org. Love it - best place on the internet to steal from your competitors. And now - baked into wordpress!

Re:

[gweihir]

So, di you also thing writers of history books are committing "copyright theft" (whatever that is supposed to be, because a legal term it is not)? What about libraries? All thieves?

time to ipfs ?

[OrangeTide]

It seems like archive.org functionality would be possible to distribute on ipfs [github.com], as it is a content-addressable store. If I take a snapshot of a webpage or zip or jpg and you do at the same time, it will have the same content there the same address so no accidental duplicate. No need for coordination and the entire wayback machine archives could go in there and individuals own snapshots could as well and it would mostly fit together except for the metadata for the link rewriting you need with wayback.

Wordpress powers over 40% of the web

[phutureboy]

How Wordpress still powers over 40% of the web is beyond me. It is poorly-architected and maddening to work with IMHO.