[LINK] Fixing Broken Links

[Roger Clarke]

This is a quick report on a first-timer's experience fixing problems 
in a biggish site (i.e. most people should tune out right now!).

In the final phases of transitioning my site from ANU to its own 
home, I've been looking at broken links on a systematic basis.

It's the first time ever;  so there's the accumulated detritus of 14 
years, comprising:
-   errors on my part (269 of 25,000 internal links broken)
-   disappearance of external links (1,467 of almost 20,000)
     although that would include some proportion of mistakes by me (200?)

The externals are mostly other people's problems, and I'm not 
prepared to do the hard yards to fix all that up.

To find the internals, I've used several sources to assist:
-   LinkAlarm, with linker George Bray's valuable help
     http://www.linkalarm.com/
-   awstats, available on the new service I'm using at
     http://www.infinite.net.au/
-   Google Webmaster tools
     https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard

The LinkAlarm Broken Links report needs some editing and sorting in 
Excel, but then provides a great control list.

I prioritised the fixes partly because I know what my important pages are.

I combined that with a check of the frequency with which the bad 
links were hit.  (That wasn't easy.  Webaliser reports don't provide 
anything, and the relevant awstats report is badly formatted).

Using that technique, I made a big dent in about 3 hours yesterday.

I'm awaiting a re-run of the LinkAlarm checks, but I reckon I've 
cleared well over half of the errors, and may or may not bother with 
the rest.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW