Well, talk about embarrassing. Here I’m selling myself as a great resource for search engine optimization. And then I discovered a link in one of my articles on my website that didn’t work.

Hmmm. That’s odd.

So I start checking all the links in my articles. And none of them work.

Originally, I didn’t have my articles in a separate file on my site. I didn’t have that many and it wasn’t a problem. Eventually, as more and more articles made their way onto my site, it got to be a big problem.

So I created a file just for articles in my HTML and transferred all the articles to the new file. Dreamweaver was supposed to update all the links. It didn’t. And I never checked them. I assumed (and we all know what that means).

Anyway, I ran a link check on my site and discovered hundreds of “dead” links. So I just spent the last eight hours going through my site fixing links.

So let my embarrassment be a lesson to you. Check Your Links. All of them. Regularly. Either run a link check with your WYSIWYG editor or have your web designer check them.

Why? Google hates dead links. It tells them one of two things:

• Either the website isn’t being updated so no one is checking the links which means the site should be dropped in the listings;
• Or, the site is being badly maintained and should be dropped in the listings

Either way, you’re in trouble from the standpoint of search engine optimization.

Bob McClain or WordsmithBob, has been a website copywriter in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, since 2000. He has focused on developing new, more effective approaches to web writing, web content, web copywriting and Search Engine Optimization. Starting with a BA in Technical Communication and a minor in Creative Writing from Metro State University in St. Paul, McClain has worked diligently to end the use of "corp-speak" and "technospeak" online. His approach is to “humanize” the Web, using real information to guide people to buy rather than turning websites into advertisements that people can easily ignore. McClain is also the creator of Cheap SEO Website Marketing, a website devoted to helping people with the best solutions to DIY SEO at an affordable cost with tips and software reviews. More at Cheap SEO Website Marketing

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Originally posted 2008-01-26 12:44:28. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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