Broken Links and PageRank?

Problem?

[htdawg]

hi,

i have been using this service that checks to see if any links are broken on my site [snip] and today they sent me a report that some links were broken. i checked and they were fine. i know if you have external links and they change or a site that linked to you dissapears it might affect page rank but not so drasticaly that you dissapear like most people experienced with the "dance" this month.

any comments?

thanks

[edited by: pageoneresults at 7:06 pm (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]
[edit reason] Removed Specifics [/edit]

[Nicola]

You can get a program for free which checks for 404 errors and redirections. Not sure if would be allowed to post it's name. But it's well worth downloading onto your hard drive and running against all your sites.

[victor]

Do a google search for

broken site:www.google.com

and read up on Google's FAQ and advice for broken links.

If I were running a SE, I'd mark sites down that feed mee broken links, and the more broken, the further down they'd go. That's because I wouldn't want to be sending my users to a dead end.

I dunno if that applies to Google, but why take the risk?

And you may already be annoying your users. They click one of your broken links, get whacked with a 404, and may conclude that the rest of your site is not be worth surfing because of the potholes.

The program to use (if you are on a WIN/PC) is XENU Link Sleuth.