incrediBILL - 3:02 am on Mar 31, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm sure many running a directory has some form of link checker, some better than others, and site quarantine procedures for domain redemption periods, assuming you can detect domains that currently aren't active.

However, at some point there is the need for a human to physically look at the web site to determine if it's still active or still being used for what it was when originally submitted to your directory.

When the automated tools all report "200 OK" and none of the analysis tools detect signs that the site is something other than was originally submitted what can you do to speed up reviewing tens of thousands of sites without manually using a browser, a massively painful time consuming situation, to visit each and every site?

SCREEN SHOTS!

Let a screen shot server visit all the sites for you and then you simply review those screen shots.

I have a home brew screen shot generator I've been using for a few years now to generate various screen shot sizes, down to thumbnails used for the site listings, and every now and then I browse all the larger versions of screen shots in groups of 500-1000 per page to see what the sites look like.

At a size of 200x200 you can often read things like "this site has moved" or see an obvious web hosting control panel page, or many other things that have slipped through the cracks of your automated link checking tools.

Sometimes the site was just in transition during the last time you refreshed the screen shot and merely needs a new screen shot, other times, the site is toast and needs to be removed.

Imagine looking at 45 sites per screen on a 24" monitor, or 90 sites with the browser opened across 2 monitors, and you can see where this is going, it's a very speedy optical review method.

Using this method you can easily preview 40K sites before lunch!

If you have the technology, give it a try!