Wikipedia:Link rot/Usurpations

Usurped domains are used by spammers, squatters, malware, SEO, phishing or other fraudulent activity. Typically they are legitimate domains that expired and were hijacked.

How to mark a citation as having a usurped domain

The following is a decision tree for each citation. It can be followed manually, or implemented algorithmically by bot.

• Does the source URL have an archive available at a web archive provider? If yes...
  • Is the citation a CS1|2 template (eg. {{cite web}})? If yes...
    • Add |url-status=usurped, |archive-url= and |archive-date=
  • Is it a square-bracketed or bare URL? If yes, either...
    • Convert to a CS1|2 template and add |url-status=usurped, |archive-url= and |archive-date=
    • Wrap the archive URL (with or without square brackets) in {{usurped}}
• Does the source URL have an archive available at a web archive provider? If not...
  • Can the citation be verified if the URL was removed (e.g. newspaper or journal content off-line)?
    • Remove the URL and keep the citation
  • Find a replacement source
    • If one is available, update the link accordingly
  • Is the citation unverifiable without a URL (e.g. web-only content)?
    • Remove the entire citation per WP:V: unverifiable

Bots

Bots that can mark citations as having a usurped domain automatically with the above steps:

• WP:WAYBACKMEDIC—Report usurped domains to WP:URLREQ

See also

• WP:JUDI—Ongoing mass usurpation of expired domains across all Wikimedia projects