August 8, 2026
Link Rot? Not on this watch
"The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years." (2011)
A 2011 bet about a web link turned into a comment-section victory lap
TLDR: A 2011 bet asked whether one web page would still be reachable 11 years later, and it appears to survive thanks to a redirect to a newer address. Commenters turned that into a bigger fight over whether the internet is truly stable or just being propped up by stubborn admins and paid hosting.
A delightfully nerdy 2011 wager about whether one specific web page would still be reachable 11 years later has resurfaced, and the real show is the crowd reaction. The setup was simple: one side said web links decay like old fruit, the other said the internet had grown up enough that careful site owners could keep pages alive. Fast-forward, and commenters are treating the result like a courtroom drama where the fine print stole the spotlight.
The loudest reaction? This was never just about the page — it was about the rules. One commenter zeroed in on the old-school “http://” part and basically joked that the most fragile thing in the whole bet wasn’t the page, but the web address format itself. Another checked the page and found that it still works by sending visitors to a newer address, which sparked the classic internet argument: does a redirect count as survival, or is that just graceful decay in a tuxedo? The bet says yes, so the “link rot” doomers got a technical gotcha.
Then came the hotter takes. Some people argued this proves nothing except that someone kept paying the bills. Others joked that if enough money were on the line, the bet would become self-fulfilling because a motivated person would rescue the link just to win. And in perhaps the funniest accidental subplot, one commenter was genuinely stunned that the Disqus comments section was still alive — almost more impressive than the page itself. In other words: the web page survived, but the comments turned it into a chaotic little museum of internet trust issues.
Key Points
- •The article presents a 2011 prediction about whether the original URL `www.longbets.org/601` would still be available 11 years later.
- •Keith argues that link rot makes long-term survival of web documents at their original locations unlikely, even over 11 years.
- •Haughey argues that web practices had matured enough to make stable URI systems maintainable, including through 301 redirects.
- •Haughey cites his own older sites, saying their original URL schemes still functioned through redirects to a newer format.
- •The article defines exact technical win conditions, including acceptance of a 301 redirect and the requirement that the resulting HTML contain a specific sentence.