I see many old answers contains expired links. Whenever I click on a link it show that links has expired.
I'm not getting why users are providing expired links in an answer?
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4$\begingroup$ A relevant, Google-able phrase is "link rot". $\endgroup$– Xander Henderson ModJun 17, 2021 at 13:28
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1$\begingroup$ A lot of users with high reputation like to post expired links. $\endgroup$– AsinomásJun 17, 2021 at 15:45
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2$\begingroup$ @jasmine Before assuming users posted expired links, check the wayback machine at the time of the post. $\endgroup$– dxivJun 17, 2021 at 18:29
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2$\begingroup$ And what do you do when you come across one of these expired links, jasmine? Do you leave a helpful comment, noting that the link has expired, so that maybe the user who left it will come back to repair the damage? Do you try to improve the situation in some other way? $\endgroup$– Gerry MyersonJun 17, 2021 at 23:19
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$\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson Sir that's not a problem. Actually , i thought that users were intentionally providing expired links $\endgroup$– jasmineJun 17, 2021 at 23:36
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$\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson sir Also, I've noticed that most of the old users are not active so i think it will be useless to comment on an answer $\endgroup$– jasmineJun 17, 2021 at 23:57
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1 Answer
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It is not that they provide expired links: they provide live links, time passes, and the links then expire. This happens very often, and that's why we prefer to avoid depending on links when answering questions on the site, unless they are reliable. Even in this case, it is much preferred if the answer does not depend on the link to be useful, and it is self-contained. See here and here for further discussion.
