Link Debt

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Link classification

• Internal anchor.
• Relative repository file.
• Absolute same-repo URL.
• External.
• Issue / PR.
• Bare URL.
• Image target.
• Broken / unresolved.

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Link Debt Score

broken_rate      = L_broken / max(1, L_total)
external_rate    = L_ext    / max(1, L_total)
bare_rate        = L_bare   / max(1, L_total)
anchor_miss_rate = missing_internal_anchors / max(1, L_int)

LinkDebtScore = clamp01(
    0.45 · sat(broken_rate;      0.00, 0.10)
  + 0.20 · sat(anchor_miss_rate; 0.00, 0.10)
  + 0.15 · sat(bare_rate;        0.05, 0.30)
  + 0.10 · sat(external_rate;    0.60, 0.90)
  + 0.10 · sat(link_density_per_100w; 6, 14)
)

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Companion scores

• Information Scent Score rewards descriptive link text, resolved relative links, working anchors, and a reference section when the doc is citation-heavy.
• Link Review Burden — 0.3·L_int + 0.8·L_rel + 1.0·L_ext + 2.5·L_broken + 0.5·L_footnote — is the cost-per-PR signal used in diff reporting.

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Bands

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References

• Pirolli, P. & Card, S. (1999). Information Foraging. Psychological Review 106(4): 643–675 — origin of the “information scent” companion score. DOI.
• Spool, J. M., Schroeder, W., Scanlon, T. & Snyder, C. (1998). Web site usability: A designer’s guide. Morgan Kaufmann — empirical evidence for descriptive link text and resolved-anchor weighting.
• Nielsen, J. (1996). Top ten mistakes in web design. Nielsen Norman Group — broken-link prevalence as the dominant link-debt term. Article.

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See also

• DMI — uses Link Debt as one of its inputs.
• Repository Grounding — uses resolved link counts.