Reference rot

Reference rot describes the decay of citations to web resources through Link rot (the URL dies) or Content drift (the URL lives but no longer says the same thing). The term is common in library science and scholarly-communication research.

Defences

Persistent identifiers, repository deposits, and routine archiving of cited URLs reduce reference rot. Journals and wikis increasingly encourage or automate deposits into systems such as the Wayback Machine.

See also

• Citation
• Persistent identifier
• Pew Research Center studies of disappearing pages (see Link rot)

Sources

• Scholarly literature on reference rot (Hiberlink and follow-on studies).
• Pew Research Center (2024) on inaccessible webpages.