An apparatus and method for checking a link validity in a computer network, wherein,
for the linking and referencing from one multimedia document to a different multimedia
document in the computer network, desired information of the different multimedia
document, such as last modified timestamp information indicative of a last modification
time of the different multimedia document and latest version information of the
different multimedia document, are stored in a validity check field, thereby assuring
a link consistency. Therefore, the number of system errors can be cost-effectively
reduced when referencing a multimedia document, and the reliability of searching
and browsing can be increased.