Editing Dead link

A '''dead link''' (broken link) is a hyperlink that no longer retrieves the intended resource, typically returning HTTP 404/410, DNS failure, connection errors, or an interstitial that is not the original content. Dead links are the visible symptom of [[Link rot]].

==Soft failures==
Not all failures are hard 404s. '''[[Soft 404]]''' pages return HTTP 200 with a "not found" body; parked domains and malware interstitials can also replace former content. Automated checkers and human editors both struggle with these cases, which is one reason archived captures matter for verification.

==In wikis==
MediaWiki marks missing internal pages as "red links." External dead links in footnotes undermine verifiability; best practice is to repair, replace with an archived copy, or remove unreproducible claims.

==See also==
* [[Link rot]]
* [[Soft 404]]
* [[Wayback Machine]]
* [[Citation]]

==Sources==
* Web-engineering and SEO literature on broken-link detection.
* Wikimedia help documentation on external links and link rot (general).

[[Category:Web archiving]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Internet culture]]