URL Stability Rank

Contents

• The Meaning of the Ranking
• Why Should You Care Whether the Site has a Permanent URL?
• How To Fix a Broken Link

URL Stability Rank / Index	Technical Characteristics	Significance
= 1.0	URL contains a domain name that the society owns and that will not change; also, the URL is in standard format	the society already has a permanent URL
= 0.5	URL contains a domain name that the society owns and that will not change; but the URL is NOT in standard format	the society will probably have a permanent URL in the near future
= 0.2	the society owns a domain name which it uses in its email address but not yet in the URL	the society clearly understands the importance of owning a domain name and will likely move towards a permanent URL
= 0.0	the society does NOT own a domain name	it is anyone's guess whether the society will be moving in the direction of a permanent URL
	as above, but we know that the URL has changed at least once	This URL is more likely to be broken than most.
	as above, but we know that the URL has changed at least twice	This URL is significantly more likely to be broken than most.
	as above, but we know that the URL has changed at least 3 times	This URL is considerably more likely to be broken than most.

NOTE: Ranks/Indices are assigned based on what we know at the time of assignment. It is entirely possible that when we last checked a site, we assigned it a rank/index of, say, one star = 0.0, but it has since acquired a domain name and is using it in the site URL. We always appreciate learning when a site has been upgraded in this way.

• every permanent URL in the Scholarly Societies Project (or any other website) means one less broken link that you will encounter

• it also means one less site that I have to check on a regular basis; and the fewer sites I have to check, the more up-to-date all the non-permanent URLs will be

• permanent URLs are usually short enough that you can memorize them; many non-permanent ones are far from short

URL Stability Rank / Index	The URL You Have	Finding the Correct URL
= 1.0	http://www.abcd.xyz/, where abcd is some reasonable abbreviation of the the society name, and xyz stands for a broad class of domains, like: org, com, org.uk, ca, OR nl; BUT NOT something like the domain name for a university, e.g. okstate.edu/.	This should already be the correct URL, since it is permanent
= 0.5	http://www.abce.xyz/abcd/ http://www.abcd.xyz/welcome.html http://abcd.xyz/	Try http://www.abcd.xyz/
= 0.2	http://something/else/etc, but email address is: mnop@abcd.xyz	Try http://www.abcd.xyz/; if that fails, use a search engine
= 0.0	http://something/else/etc, and the email address does not have a domain name for the society in it	use search engine

Jim Parrott
The Editor
Scholarly Societies Project
Sending Email to the Scholarly Societies Project