The original 1998 URL to this article was http, not https. It changed.

sleepyhead · on June 17, 2021

It did not change. http is still served but if you are getting https it is due to hsts. Regardless; redirect != it changed

chuckhoupt · on June 17, 2021

Note that HTTP is also upgraded if the UA requests it with the Upgrade-Insecure-Requests header:

  $ curl -I -H 'Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1' 'http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html'
  HTTP/1.1 307 Temporary Redirect
  location: https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
  vary: Upgrade-Insecure-Requests

ricardo81 · on June 17, 2021

$ curl -i 'http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html'

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

date: Thu, 17 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT

last-modified: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 23:09:53 GMT ...

greyface- · on June 17, 2021

  $ curl -I 'https://www.w3.org/'
  HTTP/2 200 
  [...]
  strict-transport-security: max-age=15552000; includeSubdomains; preload
  content-security-policy: upgrade-insecure-requests

detaro · on June 17, 2021

The original URL still works, that's the key.

srmarm · on June 17, 2021

Fair point but I believe the article refers to URI's rather than URL's so they're still technically correct.

Edit - I've just had a look and URI covers the lot so my bad

user3939382 · on June 17, 2021

In the next 5-10 years the https:// will be amp:// when Google completes its process of consuming the web like noface in Spirited Away.