Dead links, and how to handle them
Dead links are a mistake that I saw a lot of bloggers on Bear made. In fact, I am one of them. Dead links are links that are intended to point to an external link, but instead points to the post itself or to a non-existent path in your blog.
In this post, I will show you ways to spot and fix these dead links.
1. Missing http:// or https://
The most common form of dead links is links that doesn't have http:// or https:// at the start of the link. This is an easy fix, as you can just add one of them before the link.
Example: This post about newsletters contain dead links with missing HTTP header in every link.
How to fix:
[Tsuki](tsk.bearblog.dev). This is the dead link.
[Tsuki](http://tsk.bearblog.dev). This is the right link.
2. Empty links
Another common form of dead links is links that simply doesn't redirect to anywhere. By default, these links redirect to the post itself.
Example: Hanki's post about reducing Reddit usage has an empty link on r/nosurf.
How to fix:
[Tsuki](). This is the dead link.
[Tsuki](http://tsk.bearblog.dev). This is the right link.
3. Linkrot
I have not seen an example for this one, but it's also worth considering.
According to Wikipedia:
Link rot is the phenomenon of hyperlinks tending over time to cease to point to their originally targeted file, web page, or server due to that resource being relocated to a new address or becoming permanently unavailable.
A quick way to fix linkrot is to use an archive service (Such as archive.ph or Wayback Machine) to find the latest snapshot of the link and point to that snapshot.