To DOI or Not to DOI: Evaluating the Financial Sense of Persistent Links
Ian C. Langtree - Writer/Editor for Disabled World (DW)
Published: 2022/01/08 - Updated: 2025/01/04
Publication Type: Informative
Topic: Website Accessibility - Publications List
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main
Synopsis: This paper examines the pros and cons of whether the use of DOI reference links is worth the price, time, and effort.
Why it matters: This article provides a comprehensive and insightful analysis of the pros and cons of using Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for online publications. It offers a balanced perspective on whether DOIs are worth the time, effort, and financial investment for authors and publishers. The article is particularly useful for its practical considerations, such as the potential issues with DOI link maintenance, the cost implications, and alternative solutions like 301 redirects. It also highlights the importance of regular link checking and offers valuable advice for website managers and content creators on maintaining persistent URLs. This information is helpful for anyone involved in digital publishing or website management who needs to make informed decisions about link persistence and accessibility - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
Pros of Using Digital Object Identifiers
The stated intended features of using a DOI are listed as:
- Status: To enhance a journal's quality and impact.
- Permanency: To attempt to provide permanent links for articles and studies.
- Error Reduction: To help avoid human or machine errors in referencing articles or study URLs.
DOIs differ from URLs in that they are static. In other words, they will not change once assigned, which, in theory, makes it easy to locate at any future time. Organizations that meet the contractual obligations of the DOI system and are willing to pay to become a member of the system can assign DOIs.
A DOI aims to resolve its target, the information object to which the DOI refers. This is achieved by binding the DOI to metadata about the object, such as a URL where the object is located. Thus, by being actionable and interoperable, a DOI differs from ISBNs or ISRCs, which are identifiers only. The DOI system uses the indecs Content Model for representing metadata.
Main Item
Cons of Using Digital Object Identifiers
A process exists for obtaining DOIs, including submitting meta-data and fees. It is often very time and cost prohibitive for some authors and publishers to obtain DOIs for their published works.
In theory, referring to an online document (let's use the title of this document "Are DOI Links Worth the Time and Money" as an example throughout this article), by its DOI SHOULD provide a more stable link than directly using its URL (https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/accessibility/websitedesign/doi-links.php). However, if the "Are DOI Links Worth the Time and Money" article URL changes, the publisher, or purchaser of the DOI link, must update the information for the DOI(s) to maintain the link(s) to the URL(s). The publisher is responsible for updating their DOI database list of the new link locations for every article that changes its web address. In the event the new link locations are not updated, the DOI will become a dead link leaving the DOI a 404 error - or worse, a useless broken link.
Clicking a DOI link and waiting for the final destination page to load could be faster. Some Digital Object Identifiers will redirect your Internet browser many times before eventually bringing your browser to the intended destination, provided the publisher has maintained their URL database properly, or else you'll receive the dreaded 404 error - or worse, an unhelpful blank page.
Why Even Use a DOI Link?
A DOI is registered by a Registration Agency. Since a cost is associated with using a DOI or a similar service, it is certainly only feasible for some publishers to add these identifiers. Any website manager worth their salt can easily 301 redirect a website address to a new location address using Apache .htaccess or similar. Visitors who visit the old page will seamlessly be redirected to the article's new page location. This 301 redirect only takes a few seconds to implement, costs nothing, and is virtually instantaneous.
Checking for Redirected and Broken DOI Links
If you wish to create a direct link from a DOI link on your webpage, click the link first, then copy and paste the FINAL destination URL and use that as your link - your visitors will thank you for not wasting their precious time for the DOI to resolve to its destination URL as you have linked directly to the final destination article and bypassed all the redirects in between that may contain unwanted tracking beacons, cookies, and other information gathering scripts.
What if the Linked to DOI Article Moves?
When linking directly to a DOI destination page and you wish to find out if the publisher has changed their DOI link final destination, use ScreamingFrog, Link Sleuth, or one of the many other broken/redirected link checkers on your site regularly to check for broken links, 404 pages, and 301/302 redirects - this should always be part of good website housekeeping anyway.
Cool Links Never Change
Remember, a persistent URL is one that never changes, and your webpage links bookmarked by 3rd parties don't break.
Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Scientific Publishing: Mounting evidence suggests the peer reviewed process is far from infallible and may even be detrimental to scientific progress in some cases.
Author Credentials: Ian was born and grew up in Australia. Since then, he has traveled and lived in numerous locations and currently resides in Montreal, Canada. Ian is the founder, a writer, and editor in chief for Disabled World. Ian believes in the Social Model of Disability, a belief developed by disabled people in the 1970s. The social model changes the focus away from people's impairments and towards removing barriers that disabled people face daily. To learn more about Ian's background, expertise, and achievements, check out his bio.