Robust Links - Demos


This page lists examples of the use of robustified links.

Reference List demonstration page:

Links in references in the Reference List demonstration page are robustified with the data-versionurl and data-versiondate attributes:
  • The data-versionurl attribute contains the URI of a snapshot of the linked resource that was created when referencing it. In the Reference List demo, that URI is used to provide a Version archived on option.
  • The data-versiondate attribute contains the datetime of taking the snapshot. In combination with the URI of the original resource provided in the href attribute of the link, it is used to provide a Version archived near option. This feature will find a snapshot of the linked resource that was created around the time of taking the snapshot, even if the snapshot that was taken is itself not accessible.
These attributes are made actionable using the Robust Links JavaScript and CSS code, available in the IIPC Robust Links GitHub repository. They are embedded in the Reference List demo by including persistent links to https://doi.org/10.25776/h1fa-7a28 for the JavaScript and https://doi.org/10.25776/z58z-r575 for the CSS, respectively.

A code4lib article that features Robust Links:

This code4lib article has robustified links with the data-versionurl and data-versiondate attributes that are made actionable using the Robust Links JavaScript and CSS code, available in the IIPC Robust Links GitHub repository. They are embedded in the code4lib article by including persistent links to the respective code, in the same way as described above for the Reference List demo.

robustify.js demonstration page:

The page that demonstrates robustify.js has several links that use the data-versionurl and data-versiondate attributes to robustify its links. When a link is clicked, a server-side script is called that checks whether it still works.
  • If the link is rotten, the user is informed about the link malfunction and is then redirected to a snapshot in a web archive. The nature of the redirection is dependent on the availability of the attributes of robustified links.
    • If data-versionurl is provided, the user is redirected to the snapshot provided in the attribute.
    • If data-versiondate is available, the redirection is based on its datetime value.
  • If the link still works, it will function as usual. However, when a data-versionurl or data-versiondate attribute is provided the user is offered a choice: visit the live resource or visit a snapshot that is obtained on the basis of the provided attributes. This approach deals with the content drift aspect of reference rot: a user can visit the snapshot that was created by the web page author to see what the linked page looked like when the link was put in place.