Human edited/added links started to die when they became like SEO currency, as ranking fuel, and then linking was dealt a near fatal blow when links were reconceptualized "as like life blood, i.e., link juice", to be conserved as if life itself depended on not linking out.
That anyone should snigger or suggest that the loss of another path - ANY LINK - to a website is of no consequence makes that person's thinking a bit like the rabbit who sits in the pot, relaxing, as the temperature is slowly raised to a boil. What great irony, benefit to search engines, and tragedy that building paths, bridges, highways . . traffic . . by linking should fall into disfavor or disrepair, by the slow boiling of webmaster's minds.
"For whom does the bell toll" [
en.wikipedia.org...] . when another link path is lost - be that path or source of links called a "directory link" - or any other of the many types of once prevalent yet slowly disappearing linking behaviors?
It tolls for thee.
You can read your euology here [
webmasterworld.com...] and here [
webmasterworld.com...] .
