Embedded Links Inside Documents Go Stale
Links typed inside a document are not copies. Save the thing you may need if the address stops working.
A document full of links feels well sourced. Each claim points at a page, a shared folder, or a photo album somewhere else. Those links are addresses, not contents. Addresses move. Services rename a page. A personal site disappears. The sentence in your document still looks confident, and the click goes nowhere. If the linked item mattered, it needed to be in the archive, not only mentioned by a blue underline.
An address is not the thing it pointed at
When you link to a form, a news page, a map, or a relative's album, you are trusting that the address will keep serving the same material. Some will, for a long time. You cannot tell which ones by looking at the link. For a household archive, the practical test is simple. If you would be stuck without that item on a day when the network is down, save a copy. If you are only offering a convenience for today's reader, a link is fine, and you should expect it to be a courtesy rather than a promise. The document can say both: where the item lived, and where your saved copy is.
Save the target the day you cite it
The day you paste the link is the day the page is still in front of you. Save the form, export the album page you need, or copy the referenced file into the same folder as the document. Name the saved copy so it matches the sentence that cites it. In the document, write the date you retrieved it. Pages change quietly, and a later reader deserves to know which version you meant. This is the same instinct as keeping an attachment beside an email, which is why making email exports readable insists that attachments are files. A link to a file you do not hold is an attachment you already lost.
Links inside your own archive break too
Not every stale link points at the public web. A word processor file that points at a photo on one laptop, or a spreadsheet that pulls from a path on a former coworker's machine, will open with holes on any other computer. Those links felt permanent because they worked every day on the machine that made them. Before a folder is archived or handed on, open the document on a second machine or after the files have been moved as a group. Broken internal links are easier to fix while the target is still on your disk. A checklist before you share a folder should include clicking the links you expect the other person to trust.
Name the failure instead of leaving a bare underline
If you cannot save the target, write what it was in plain language next to the link: the title, the organization or person, and the date you last saw it. A bare address that dies is a blank. A sentence can still tell a future reader what you were pointing at, even when the click fails. Do not invent a quotation from a page you did not save. Paraphrase only what you actually read, and mark it as your paraphrase. The archive should not become more certain as the sources vanish. It should become more honest about what it still holds.
Review links when you review the folder
You do not need a monthly project devoted to the entire web. When you already have a folder open for a preservation evening, click the few links in that folder's key documents. If one fails and you have a saved copy, fix the sentence so it points at the copy. If one fails and you have no copy, write that the address was dead when you checked, and keep the description. Delete the link only if it now misleads, not because a dead link feels untidy. A struck-through address with a note is evidence. Silence looks like the reference never mattered.
Frequently asked questions
Should I never use links in an archived document? Use them as conveniences. Do not use them as the only place the important file exists. Pair each essential link with a copy or with a description you wrote yourself.
Are links in a PDF safer? The PDF may preserve the look of the document and still send the reader to a dead address. A PDF does not download the thing the link pointed at unless you saved that thing separately.
What about links to my own cloud folder? They break when the folder moves, the share settings change, or the account closes. If the files matter, they should also live in the archive you control, not only at an address.