Mislinks

Mislinks are hyperlinks that resolve to an incorrect or unintended destination, rather than the page that was meant to be reached. They differ from dead links, which lead to missing pages or 404s, and from valid redirects that intentionally forward readers to the correct target. Mislinks can occur in any hyperlinked system, but are a common concern in wikis and large websites where content is frequently moved, renamed, or reorganized.

Causes of mislinks include human error during link creation, page renaming or relocation without updating all references, inconsistent disambiguation, case sensitivity issues, and mismatches between anchor text and target content. They can also arise from importing or merging content from different sources, or from multilingual sites where a link points to the wrong language variant.

Impact of mislinks can range from mild reader confusion to the spread of outdated or incorrect information. They undermine trust in a site’s quality and can increase navigation effort for users.

Detection and remediation often involve link-audit processes. Automated link-checkers, server logs, and user reports help identify mislinks. In wiki environments, bot-assisted cleanups and manual reviews are common. Prevention strategies include using canonical URLs, maintaining clear disambiguation pages, implementing robust redirection policies, and aligning internal linking with stable page structures. Regular publishing workflows should incorporate link validation and content maintenance to minimize mislinks over time. Related concepts include link rot and general link integrity.