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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.

4 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  Furthermore, linking to expired, cached, or archived versions of a page could be just as problematic as it could have outdated and incorrect information which might infuriate the user even more.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. Um, 301 and 302 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We already have redirects. They work just fine.

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    Great so now instead of getting a 404 to know I am accessing old or removed content I will now get out of date and potentially wrong content instead of being informed of the error.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