linkrot

See also: link rot

English

WOTD – 28 September 2023

Etymology

An HTTP 404 error on the Whitehouse.gov website. Such errors can be due to linkrot.

From link (“hyperlink”) +‎ rot (“process of becoming rotten”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlɪŋkˌɹɒt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlɪŋkˌɹɑt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: link‧rot

Noun

linkrot (uncountable)

1. (Internet) The steady increase in the number of broken hyperlinks as webpages are moved or removed.
   • 2021 June 30, Jonathan Zittrain, “The Internet is Rotting”, in The Atlantic‎^[1], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-09-06:

     It turns out that link rot and content drift are endemic to the web, which is both unsurprising and shockingly risky for a library that has “billions of books and no central filing system.”

Alternative forms

• link rot

Translations

steady increase in the number of broken hyperlinks as webpages are moved or removed

• Arabic: رابط مكسور
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 失效連結／失效连结 (shīxiàoliánjié)

• Dutch: linkrot
• Estonian: lingikõdu, lingimädanik
• Finnish: linkkirutto
• Indonesian: pranala mati
• Japanese: リンク切れ (リンクぎれ, rinku-gire)
• Macedonian: изуми́рање на вр́ската f (izumíranje na vŕskata)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: lenkeråte

• Persian: پیوند مرده
• Portuguese: apodrecimento de links m, apodrecimento de referência f, quebra de links m
• Russian: вымира́ние ссы́лок f (vymiránije ssýlok)
• Swedish: länkröta (sv)
• Turkish: bağlantı bozulması, bağlantı kırılması, bağlantı ölümü
• Ukrainian: вимирання посилань (vymyrannja posylanʹ)
• Urdu: مردہ روابط

See also

• dead link
• bit rot
• permalink

Further reading

• link rot on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “linkrot, n.”, in Collins English Dictionary.