Re: Issue entered final state: How often is a broken link enc...
From: Jim Pitkow (pitkow@parc.xerox.com)
Date: Thu, Jul 01 1999
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 00:11:22 PDT
To: www-wca@w3.org
From: Jim Pitkow <pitkow@parc.xerox.com>
Message-Id: <99Jul1.015040pdt."363930"@louise.parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: Issue entered final state: How often is a broken link enc...
404 == broken link was the heuristic I used to compute the number from the
AOL traces. Not perfect, but was % was confirmed by some VT traces as well./
Broken links has several levels of interest:
on the Web as a whole (we've looked at this using our local version of the
web - others like the Link Rot survey http://www.pantos.org/atw/35654.html
sample to get this)
% of broken links from the subset of the Web people actually use
% of traffic that has 404
What rate do you see in the World Net traces
At 04:10 AM 6/28/99 , Balachander Krishnamurthy wrote:
>
>[i dont see how i can respond to "closed" issues from the tracking system]
>
> Issue: How often is a broken link encountered? [2]
> State: resolved [not]
>
>>Broken links can be detected in client and server logs by the HTTP
>>status code 404 being returned to the client.
>
>rfc 2616 says
>
>10.4.5 404 Not Found
>
> The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No
> indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or
> permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server
> knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old
> resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address.
> This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to
> reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other
> response is applicable.
>
>what about "This status code is commonly used when the server does not
>wish to reveal exactly why the request has been refused" part?
>what might be "not found" to hapless aol users may be jolly well returned
>to smart worldnet users? i don't know what percentage of times this might
>happen but is the present understanding that a 404 is the same as "broken
>link"?
>
>cheers,
>bala
>