Abandonded Project Websites -> no

an initiative to increase awareness on (not) abandoning websites at project finish

Paul van Genuchten

2023-11-04

A broken link from a report?

• or worse, arrive in an online casino from a link in a report?
• many websites are abandoned few years after project finish
• website builders should show ownership of domains they create
• report writers should not link to dodgy locations (aka project websites)

An initiative to recover lost content

• Identify which websites with usefull information are lost
• Recover the content from archive.org or organisation backups
• Reclaim the domains (restore linkage)
• Join the efforts at github.com/soil-on-web/abandoned-webs

Good practices on url persistence of project websites

• use a subdomain of an established organisation
• use a persistent identifier framework, when linking to external sources
• set up rewrite rules at website cancelation
• use minimal technology, yes: html; no: wordpress, liferay, …
• keep the content minimal, link to external (persistent) resources
• pre-pay the domain ownership for at least the upcoming 10 years