A tombstone page served at the resolved URL of a DOI after the underlying resource has been withdrawn, providing withdrawal information and metadata while ensuring the DOI itself continues to resolve.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 10 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A DataCite DOI for a dataset withdrawn after a quality issue, with the landing page now displaying the withdrawal notice and the metadata frozen.
Is an instance
A Crossref-DOI article retracted by the publisher, with the landing page now prefixed 'RETRACTED:' and linking to the retraction notice DOI.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A broken 404 at the DOI's resolved URL is not a tombstone.
Not an instance
Removing the DOI from doi.org's resolution table would not be tombstoning — it would be deletion, which is strongly discouraged.

Editorial commentary

DOI tombstoning is the recommended pattern when a publisher or repository must remove the underlying content but cannot ethically delete the citation history. DataCite supports an explicit ‘withdrawn’ state; Crossref relies on publisher tombstone landing pages plus the ‘is-retracted-by’ relationship in metadata. The DOI itself stays resolvable: a citation that was correct at the time of publication remains a resolvable reference, with the tombstone explaining the change of state.

References

DataCite, 'Best Practice — Update Metadata for Withdrawn DOIs' (support.datacite.org).

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="DOI tombstone"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-tombstone" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-tombstone",
  "name": "DOI tombstone",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-tombstone",
  "description": "A tombstone page served at the resolved URL of a DOI after the underlying resource has been withdrawn, providing withdrawal information and metadata while ensuring the DOI itself continues to resolve.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-tombstone",
  "sameAs": [],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10T02:10:36",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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