If you link to a page, whatever text you put in as the body of the link will remain. The link itself won't go anywhere, but the content you have added to it will remain. In this case, it's as if the link text also vanished when the target page vanishes.
That would be an interesting solution to link rot, admittedly - lots of older pages which are just empty lists formerly containing links to now defunct websites!
That would be an interesting solution to link rot, admittedly - lots of older pages which are just empty lists formerly containing links to now defunct websites!