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I went to Overture and used exactly the same query. Listing two grabbed my eyes immediately, and I am now in the process of downloading the driver. Thank you Overture (or should I say thank you Inktomi!)
Perhaps Google should penalise for dead links and continuously scan for link status (live/dead) constantly. One dead link could move someone down one position in the SERPS, two for two position drop etc... - this would mean one of the sites in the top 3 would be at about position 50!
I understand what you mean by penalising people for dead links, but isn't Google all about finding the most relevant content, rather than sites with loads of broken links. If a link's broken, Google won't follow it therefore no spidering for the offending webmaster. After all, Google is sending us to [i]that[/] site, rather than sites which it links to.
Steve.
One site I went into had about 100 links on the page. I could not get one link to work. I tried about 15. That is appalling and to think they were in the top three!
Also one of the most strongly stated rules for inclusion in most of the more expensive paid-for inclusion programs (such as Yahoo) state that incomplete sites shouldn#t/won't be listed. As far as I'm concerned a site with dead links is most definitely "under construction" and shouldn't warrant high SERPs.
On the flip side the odd one however may be warranted occasionally due to the nature of the web and the fact that even big servers do go down occasionally, and companies do go out of business, so the webmaster should be allowed some breathing space to fix new dead links. Many on one page though, ,, naah!
Google could not issue a large penalty for a page with one dead link - that would be unfair, but it could penalise per dead link.
If the webmaster has not bothered to update their links then they probably do not check that page in googles ranking anyway.
P.S. I don't mean a site penalty - but rather a page penalty.
