Do you know how many dead links are plaguing your Web site right now? If not, what you don't know, may be hurting your online business. My own Web site has been online since 1996, but I had no idea just how many dead links it contained until I received a few "dead-link complaints" via email. I decided to take stock of the black holes my site was linking to by running a systematic link check. Much to my surprise, I found that my site had a severe case of link rot!

While my internal links (links within my own site from one page to another) were pretty good - just two dead links - my external links had rotted away without me knowing it. I found as many as thirty dead links! Shame on me. Not only does this portray a poor image of professionalism, it can cause other problems. For starters, bad links send visitors scurrying away from your site. Additionally, search engines tend to favor sites without link problems and give higher ranking to sites who keep up on their link maintenance.

How is your site doing?

You probably have dead links on your site right now, and you are not alone. Studies show that on average, one out of every fifteen links on the Web is not functioning. If your site is that bad, you're in trouble. Heck, if one out of every twenty links on your site is dead there's a good chance that every visitor to your site will find a dead link. Think about that for a minute. Are you willing to risk losing every visitor to your Web site?

The solution to managing the problem of dead links is to periodically and systematically check for link rot, especially if your site contains links to other Web sites. Take time to do it today. There are plenty of link-checking programs that you simply turn loose before you go to bed and they'll do all the work for you. You'll wake in the morning with up with a fresh list of bum links to fix. Here are some of the best available solutions.

Web-Based Link Checking

These solutions offer link checking without the need for installing software on your computer. Most of these allow a small sampling of their service on a limited number of Web pages. If you have a very small site, these are great. Just visit one of these URL's and run a quick and free check.

- Website Garage
- Net Mechanic
- Dr. Watson

Link Checking Software

Software solutions are ideal for larger sites and they allow you to perform the link checks through your own computer. I tried a number of programs like this and each one did the job effectively.

- InfoLink Link Checker
- LinkScan
- WebAnayzer

Create a Safety Net for Internal Links

One last tip I recommend is to add a customized error page to your site. No matter how well you maintain your internal links, there will always be surfers who enter an URL incorrectly and get the dreaded 404 error page. You can keep your visitors from getting that ugly error message by simply creating a customized error page. In a nutshell, it is the same as creating any other Web page. Just create a page that tells your visitors they are a little lost and invite them to click a link to your home page. For an example of an effective custom error page, go to this bogus Web page at my Web site: http://www.bizweb2000.com/asdf.

It is simple to create a similar page for your site. Create a custom page, and then contact your Web host and they'll tell you exactly how make it work on your server!

Remember, dead links will compromise your Web site visitors' experience severely. Visitors may even click away from your site never to return. Take your Web site maintenance seriously if you want your site to be taken seriously!

(by Jim Daniels (www.bizweb2000.com))