User:Dispenser/changelink

Steps involved in fixing a bad link:

1. If the connection timed out, then type link to google.com and check for a match, then check for a Google cache date. If Google saw it recently, then the server is having a short outage and it may come back.
2. If you get a 404 Not Found, then see if article title is given and search for an abstract
3. Prefix link with http://www.archive.org/web and take off the http:// prefix of the original link.

Use {{wayback}} if the link is not embedded. You might also want to note when Wayback last saw the server.

You can also backref to Wikipedia:Dead external links#Downloads to see if it has been missing long-term.--SallyForth123 23:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)