Forum Moderators: phranque
I check spelling and syntax on all new pages, and after major edits. I also manually test links on new pages and after major edits.
I have a batch validator and a link checker that I find it easy to use, so I use them "regularly". I have no batch spelling checker, so that gets done on a more ad hoc basis, but usually gets done.
Today I had a guilty feeling that I had not checked my links in a long time. I ran Xenu and, lo and behold, it complained about no fewer than 35 broken links!
Things were not really quite so bad. As usual two sites sent 403s, and six sites had various temporary failures. But that left me with 27 404s :(
Again, not quite as bad as it seemed. One site to which I link extensively (a major authority in my field) had been redesigned, with *.shtml being replaced by *.cfm. A custom 404 redirected "real" users to the correct page, but Xenu just reported the 404. Still, repairing those links was a good thing.
I was still left with half a dozen links which had effectively disappeared (mostly hobby sites) and so had to be removed, and a few pages which had been moved but without a redirect of any kind (I had to go to the home page and search for the specific page I wanted).
Maintaining a site is not fun, but sites do gradually degrade if not carefully checked!
- Spell check, and validate, each revision.
- Check all links at least once per month.
