… you find out it can.
This is something that I think most sophisticated web users do anyway but now it can be done automatically.
It’s a wonderful example about how good things happen when great minds get involved.
Who hasn’t followed a link or a bookmark or a carefully curated website or a great blog only to find that it’s not where your computer thinks it should be and you get the dreaded 404 error message? Good websites or browsers will often give you a customized message to let you know something is amiss but it’s still unnerving at times when you know that the resource should be there. Or, at least it was at one point.
If the website or resource has indeed gone away, who hasn’t used the Wayback Machine to find a resource from the past, captured as it constantly monitors the web.
Heck, you might even find the presence of a former employer.
If nothing else, it’s a reminder of how we were all learning to create content for the web.
A new project from Mozilla promises to solve this with “No More 404s”. It’s part of the Firefox Test Pilot project and, if you enter a link that would normally generate a 404 error, Firefox will try to return a successful result by digging into the Wayback Machine for it.
There are other experiments in the Test Pilot program so check them out. I find the “No More 404s” part most intriguing.
I predict that, if it’s successful, all browsers will eventually incorporate it or something like it.
It’s just a great idea.
Thoughts?
doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.