Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

404-No-More Project Seeks To Rid the Web of '404 Not Found' Pages

Posted by Unknown on from the rm-is-not-forever dept.

First time accepted submitter blottsie (3618811) writes "A new project proposes to do away with dead 404 errors by implementing a new HTML attribute that will help access prior versions of hyperlinked content. With any luck, that means that you'll never have to run into a dead link again. ... The new feature would come in the form of introducing the mset attribute to the <a> element, which would allow users of the code to specify multiple dates and copies of content as an external resource." The mset attribute would specify a "reference candidate:" either a temporal reference (to ease finding the version cited on e.g. the wayback machine) or the url of a static copy of the linked document.

9 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Lovely Concept, but the true answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone who deals with SEO on a daily basis, 404 errors are quite annoying. But there is always a reason to why there is a 404, and a missing/deleted page is not always the reason. This could include a misspelled file name.

    Furthermore, linking to expired, cached, or archived versions of a page could be just as problematic as it could have outdated and incorrect information which might infuriate the user even more.

    Individual websites should get their 404s under control themselves.

  2. Actual Utility? by ctishman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Given the choice to display either out-of-date information (potentially causing liability or other miscommunication) or simply putting up a catch-all branded error page with a link back to the site's home, I'm not sure what sort of organization would choose the former.

  3. Um, 301 and 302 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We already have redirects. They work just fine.

  4. what a terrible idea by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great so now instead of getting a 404 to know I am accessing old or removed content I will now get out of date and potentially wrong content instead of being informed of the error.

    1. Re:what a terrible idea by failedlogic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This would also make deletion of content on the web more difficult.

  5. I'll keep my 404's, thank you. by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Basically wouldn't this become a way to hijack requests to drive ad revenue for whoever? :( It Seriously bugs me when Comcast pulls stuff like this -- though perhaps processing this html tag could be something disabled via the browser?

  6. Poor design by Bogtha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems to me that they are reinventing the <a> element, badly. Semantically, what they are trying to express is a series of related links. What they should be doing is relaxing the restrictions on nested <a> elements and defining the meaning of this, then defining a suitable URN for dated copies of documents. That way they don't need to replicate perfectly fine attributes such as rel in a DSL that isn't used anywhere else and the semantics of the relationship are more accurately described.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  7. Pretty thin on why by Imagix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The proposal doesn't say a whole lot about why one would want to do it. So I can attach a date to a link. How does this guarantee that _those_ links won't die?

  8. There aren't many 404s by Hentes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There aren't many 404s left anyway. Domain dealers are quick to put their hands on every dead link. Which is a shame, because a 404 would be more informative.