cannotlink

Cannotlink is a term used in information technology and online publishing to describe a hyperlink that cannot be followed, resolved, or created due to policy, permission, or technical limitations. The concept appears in discussions of link integrity, content governance, and access control. Common causes include: the target resource is protected behind authentication or a paywall; the target domain is blocked by an administrator or by a security policy; the target page has been deleted, redirected, or does not exist; linking to the resource would violate copyright, licensing, or usage restrictions; or the link would create a disallowed or unsafe reference under a site's content policies. In wiki and content-management environments, cannotlink is often addressed by editors or automated tools through warnings, replacements with alternative sources, or by applying policy rules that prevent insertion of certain links.

It is distinct from a red link, which in many wikis indicates a page that does not yet exist. Cannotlink implies an active barrier to linking rather than merely an absent target. In software applications, a cannotlink condition can be represented by an error state or by a function that returns false for a linking operation. Best practices include validating potential links against policy before insertion, documenting linking restrictions in editorial guidelines, and providing clear notes or alternatives when a link cannot be established.

See also: link integrity, red link, disallowed content, access control, robots exclusion protocol.