For someone just beginning his or her own site, internal linking can be a painful, time-consuming process. Those who use programs to write the html coding for you are especially vulnerable. Further research may make you realize a URL would be better off with a different name. So one must go through a site page-by-page, link-by-link. If I had my ‘druthers, I’d be testing battery strength with my tongue.

Broken links are obviously a usability issue, which will defer returning traffic and hinder conversions, but it has more serious consequences as well. When a spider returns repeatedly to a site that is host to a plethora of broken links, it may put up a flag. Now not only is your new home business suffering in sales, but it could take months to recuperate in organic search from the penalties incurred.

I’ve tried several tools that will check for broken links, but the most thorough and user-friendly I have found is Xenu. Despite its Oprah-couch-jumping origins, this tool performs a diagnostics on text links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets, as well as partial testing on ftp and gopher sites.