From owner-freebsd-questions Sun May 6 16:28:53 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net (h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net [24.69.46.74]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55E9137B424 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 16:28:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@tenzo.com) Received: from h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net (localhost.gv.shawcable.net [127.0.0.1]) by h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id f46NVfV02353 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 16:31:42 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@tenzo.com) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: "Michael O'Henly" Reply-To: michael@tenzo.com To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Link Rot Detector and Page Updater Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 16:31:41 -0700 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <0105061631410D.01765@h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG [ The FreeBSD angle on this question is: does such a tool already exist in the ports collection, in the known universe -- or is it a scripting project? ] What I'm thinking about is a link checker that not only detects bad links, it has the additional capability of upating a web page that has questionable links. For example, it might write a comment containing the number of times a check has failed consecutively adjacent to a questionable URL. If that number exceeds a certain value, it would move the original URL into the comment and replace it with a link to a local page that offers some help to the user: the date the link went AWOL, links to search engines, google's cached copy, contact info, etc. The next time the checker runs, if it finds the original link active, it could reverse the process. The idea here is that you'd provide the user with a consistent and helpful interface for dead links, instead of just a "can't connect" or 404 error from the original site. Before I embarass myself before a wider audience, are there any drop-dead obvious flaws in this idea (assuming it has not already been implemented)? M. -- Michael O'Henly To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message