How to Use DeadURL.com to Make Broken Links Work Again

Lots of pages on the web have links that just don't work anymore. DeadURL.com is a free online service that quickly takes you from a broken link to a working alternative. It does this by finding backup locations for missing content, using Google Cache, the Internet Archive, and user submissions.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A computer
• An internet connection
• A web browser

1. Type deadurl.com/ to the left of the http:// in your address bar, and hit enter. This takes you to a list of current backup links for the error-producing web page.

2. Click a backup link near the top of the list to preview it.

3. If the preview looks good, click the green thumbs up to visit the backup page itself. If not, click the red thumbs down to find another backup link.

4. Your choice of thumbs up or thumbs down influences the score for a backup link. Links with the best score appear at the top of the backups list, which is why the ones listed first are more likely to be helpful.

Tips & Warnings

• Dead URL works with images, text files, and download links, in addition to complete web pages. Any http:// url will work.
• You can configure DeadURL.com to change what happens when you type deadurl.com/ in front of a bad link and press enter. You can either a) visit the backups page like normal, b) preview the best backup, or c) skip everything and forward to the best backup.
• To get the most out of DeadURL.com, visit the home page and add the Toolbar Link to your bookmarks toolbar. After that, instead of typing deadurl.com/ in front of a dead url, you can simply click your Toolbar Link.
• Each backups page has a form where you can submit new backup links you find for a dead url.

Resources

• DeadURL.com