Even back then ...

I'm certainly not going to try to count the instances of linkrot in the Boidem's pages. I have no doubt that anyone who'll click through these pages will encounter numerous examples of "page not found" announcements. I linked to pages on the defunct GeoCities domain alone, for instance, 18 times, and I'm sure that there are numerous links to sites that I thought were worth viewing that have long ago disappeared. (I also mentioned the results of searches via AltaVista a bit more than 100 times, but rather than this being an example of linkrot it only shows that over the years our online search habits have changed, as they inevitably would, though not necessarily for the better.) I was certainly aware of the problem. I mentioned linkrot ten times in these columns, mostly when I wrote about trying to get back to a page that was no longer there. One page contained an extended examination of the phenomenon. When rereading it I was more than a bit surprised to discover that I seemed to view the disappearance of a previously linked to page as a personal affront:

what makes me feel uncomfortable about having links on the Boidem pages that lead to no-longer existent web pages is the fact that they might reflect on me

But disappearing pages really weren't my fault. And it may even be the case that most web users hardly ever encounter pages that are no longer available.

Go to: There's no chance that I'll find them all, or
Go to: Sometimes the tie-in is obvious, or
Go to: It was thirty years ago today