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Further
Reading ...
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How A Security Specialist Fell Victim To Attack
You may reprint or publish this article free of charge as long as the bylines are included. Original URL (The Web version of the article) ------------ How A Security Specialist Fell Victim To Attack Title ----- How A Security Specialist...
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Direct Mail Advertising; Email Is Not Like Postal Mail.
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Computer Traumas
It has happened! Computer games have started to control my life on and off the screen. No complicated games like Age of Empires, just the simple one of Tetris. You know the one, where different shaped and colored bricks fall out of the sky and...
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Link Rot Kills
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Written By:
Jim Daniels
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"My site had a severe case of
link rot and yours may too!"
Have you ever run a link checking program on your website?
No, not one of those quickie link checks, but a "full site"
link check?
What you learn about your website may disturb you. It
happened to me this week. As owner of a fairly large website
that has been online about four years, I realized I may have
had a number of dead links. I just had no idea how many.
Sure, I'd been averaging a few "dead-link complaints" every
month lately, but I always thought I ran a pretty tight
ship.
I thought wrong. I finally ran a full site link check and
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 with just two dead links,
get this... THIRTY external links had rotted away without me
knowing it! Shame on me. Not only does this portray a bad
image, it can cause other problems as well.
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.
So what about your site? You probably have dead links on
your site right now too, and you are not alone. Studies show
that on average, one out of every 15 links on the Web is not
functioning. If your site is that bad, you're in trouble.
Heck, if one out of every 20 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 website? I
thought not.
The solution is to periodically and systematically check for
link rot, especially if your site contains links to other
web sites. Take time and do it today! I researched some
programs this week that you can simply turn loose before you
go to bed and you'll wake up with a fresh list of bum links
to fix. Here they are...
Web-Based Link Checking:
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
http://www.websitegarage.com
Net Mechanic
http://www.netmechanic.com
Dr. Watson
http://watson.addy.com
Link Checking - continued below ...
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continued ...
Software:
Software solutions are ideal for larger sites allowing you
to perform the link checks through your own computer. I
tried a number of programs this week and ended up settling
on InfoLink Link Checker by http://www.biggbyte.com/ - it
gives you 50 full uses of the program before you have to pay
a dime. If you plan to use it beyond that you can register
it for a small fee.
Some other software programs that will run link checks at
your site are:
LinkScan
http://www.elsop.com/
WebAnayzer
http://www.incontext.com/
Create a Safety Net for Internal Links:
One more 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 a 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 website:
http://www.bizweb2000.com/asdf
See how it gets folks back on track quickly, rather than
losing them to another website?
Here's another 404 error page that does the trick:
http://www.WebBusinessToday.com/goofsarepeopletoo.html
As far as the technical aspects of making it work, it is
simple. Just create a web page then contact your web host
and they'll tell you exactly how make it work on your
server.
If you need some ideas for a 404 error page of your own,
check out: http://www.cool404.com - each time you reload the
page a new customized 404 page will pop up.
Remember, dead links are a bigger deal than you may be
making them out to be. They will compromise your website
visitors' experience severely. Visitors may even click away
from your site never to return. Take your website
maintenance seriously if you want your site to be taken
seriously!
About the Author
Tip by Jim Daniels, author of the book that has helped
thousands of small business owners prosper online. Get the
book at http://www.bizweb2000.com/insider.htm and get a
free bonus for ordering today! And be sure to opt-in to
Jim's famous BizWeb eGazette. It's free forever...
mailto:optin@bizweb2000.com
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