One of the most time-consuming chores when maintaining a web directory is ensuring that there are no dead or rotten links. I’ve spent the last half an hour or so weeding out the deadwood on search.ie, a task I try to conduct at least once a fortnight.
What’s interesting is seeing the number of websites that haven’t ceased to exist, but have a rather silly and easy to fix error for weeks on end. The number of sites that have problems with .htaccess / mod_rewrite or problems of that nature is quite worrying.
What’s even more worrying is that the site owners don’t get the problems fixed.
If your site is not reachable or browsable it cannot be indexed. Plain and simple.
Michele Neylon :: Pensieri
Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts
Footer
Site hosted in Ireland by Blacknight - Content copyright Michele Neylon
What a pain to have to do that manually. I’ll build an app to do it for you for a bargain price… 😉
…and if you think it’d be useful to anyone else we can market it!
Is there more than just link checking involved (e.g. do you remove those erroneous entries)?
Eoghan – it’s not *that* manual 🙂 The directory management software has a set of scripts that check the response codes on the links in the database.
If the link does not work I remove it. For the ones with the odd errors I tend to hold onto them for a couple of weeks before removing them entirely.
Which of your directories is more populer: browse.ie or search.ie.
Search.ie