Who first used the word 'linkrot'?

Who is the original coiner of the word 'linkrot'? Does anyone know?

Solution 1:

"link-rot" is mentioned in the book Reality Check by David Wieners and David Pescovitz (copyright 1996):

You can web-surf them right away, during the delicate instant of history before the URLs all shift, the connections fail, the files shift addresses, and the hotlinks give way to the curse of link-rot.

In the same year, 1996, there is mention of "link rot" (without the hyphen) in Laura Morgan's Child support guidelines: interpretation and application:

I learned about the transient nature of the internet from maintaining my website and its numerous links; each month, a number of states would change the location of the guidelines or the state agency, resulting in what is known as "link rot".

hope this helps! :)

Solution 2:

Google ngrams shows the first instances (that look really like the meaning of links failing) being for the spelling 'link rot' around 1996:

Notice that the much more popular spelling currently is as two words rather than one.

This doesn't really say that any particular person coined it (though of course some one could have).