How did I spend my Sunday? Well,with the Vikings vs. 49er's game playing in the background (how did you like the end?), I spent the day removing dead links from my site. Personally, I really find it irritating to go to a link and discover it doesn't work. So, in order prevent my visitors from experiencing this same frustration, I like to go in every few weeks and check my site for dead links and clean them out.I went in today and was amazed to find about 20 links that did not work. Most were from bloggers who left comments on my site and have since left the blogging world. Now, since Blogger does not allow us to edit our comments, I end up going in and copying the original comment and then republishing it with the following comment: "Edited to remove dead link. Original comment posted on: (I give date and time)." When it happens to be a broken link, I go in and do the same thing, but this time I post it using the corrected URL. Today, I not only had to fix and remove links in the comments, but also in some of my articles. I went in and removed the link, then republished the post.
How do I find these dead links? Well, I use a free link checker I found through my Profit Lance course (yes, I broke down and took the course a year or so ago). Even though it's free, it does a very good job of going through EVERY single link on your site. When you find one that is broken or dead, just highlight the link and right-click on properties. It will then tell you where you can find the link on your site.
If you run into any problems trying to remove the little guys, just let me know and I'll do my best to help you.
Xenu Link Checker
Thanks for the information Tim - I will check it out.
ReplyDeleteWow, you go all out with your dead link dump. Is there some SEO significance to removing comment links? I have never heard of any, but I'd like to know. Still, I have 11 blogs... there is no way I could sift through thousands and thousands of comments-- it would be a full-time job for me, non-stop!
ReplyDeleteYum Yum is so cute!
ReplyDeleteWhat's the benefit of removing dead links? I never heard of such a thing so just wanted to know why it needs to be done.
Chris: You're welcome:)
ReplyDeleteRebecca: Hi, the only SEO significance I have heard of, is that it reduces the number of unnecessary outgoing links from your site, which could have an effect on page rank.
BeadedTail: I do it as a service to my readers, but apart from that, I have heard that it also reduces the number of unnecessary outgoing links from your site. If there are too many outgoing links, it could have an effect on page rank.
Sounds like a lot of work. But I agree it's annoying when you click on something only to find it's not there anymore. Have a great day.
ReplyDeleteAnn: It is a lot of work, but I like having all my links working.
ReplyDeleteWow, Tim I never even thought about dead links in comments. I've got to try the link checker you suggested because to go back over a year would be a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion!
I never though of this problem before, but done via software sure sounds a little easier than manually. Thanks for that info!
ReplyDeleteMountain Woman of Red Pine Mountain: I never did either, but when I used until this for the first time, I discovered a lot of dead links. When I did this on Sunday, I found 15.
ReplyDeleteWillOaks Studio: Aside from alerting you to dead links throughout your site, it can also alert you, for example, when some images are not loading. This happened to me on Sunday. I came across a broken link that appeared on over 400 pages. I tracked it down and discovered that the site where my favicon is stored was down. After a few days, it was still down, so I moved it to another site.
Thanks for the information. I installed a "broken link checker" plugin, and found that a lot of my older reference links were no longer active. I don't know why, but they have vanished! I didn't get any from my commenters, which is great. I never would have thought to check, so thanks again.
ReplyDeleteJan from BetterSpines: You are very welcome. I've had that happen a few times as well. I assume that you are using Wordpress? Those guys have a plugin for everything!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea to do this. I really wish I had the patience...
ReplyDeleteP.S. You gotta love that Brett Favre. As much as we want to hate him, he's still Brett Favre. ;)
Your Daily Cute: Wasn't that a fantastic ending! I always enjoy watching him play.
ReplyDelete