What is Link Rot?
Link rot is caused when a Web designer or developer takes a page down from their Web site and does not put up a replacement page to explain where the old page went. Instead of getting what the customer wanted, the reader is treated to a 404 or "page not found" error message.
Why do 404 or "page not found" pages exist? Okay, yes, we need to get some type of error message when we go to a URL that doesn't exist. But unfortunately, we get this error message just as often when the link still exists, it just doesn't exist where your customer went.
There are a lot of reasons why a site might change the addresses of their pages. Unfortunately, most of them are bad reasons.
- we organized our site to make it better
- we couldn't keep track of our existing documents
- we're "rebranding" our site
- our hosting service went down
On first blush, these all sound like okay reasons to move a page leaving a 404 "Page Not Found" behind. But are they really? One of the biggest fallacies of the Web is that things have to change. But all this change really points to is a lack of forethought and planning in creating URLs.
Let's Review the Excuses
- we organized our site to make it better
doing a reorg of a Web site might be a good idea, but making old links break (when they do, in fact, still exist) shows a lack of organization in the first place. It also ignores the refers that might be coming into that site from links on external sites. In fact, in my company, links will break when one Web team decides to move their pages without redirects, and these are links from and to the same domain.
- we couldn't keep track of our existing documents
the bottom line is, if you're going to maintain a site with hundreds or even thousands of documents, you need to have some way of keeping track of the pages. Since you don't, and all the old links are now broken, I hope you've taken this into account with your new system
- we're "rebranding" our site
this sounds like a really good reason to get rid of old URLs. But unless you're changing the domain name as well, your branding efforts will be lost and rendered ineffective as customers can't find the pages they are used to finding. With most modern Web servers, you can set up redirects so that when the customer types in the old URL, they are "magically" taken to the new URL. When they read it, they will see your new brand, not the old one.
- our hosting service went down
this should only affect people who are managing pages on a separate domain. For example, http://www.domain.com/~username/... This type of URL are fairly unusual for companies and business sites. If you own your own domain, then losing your hosting provider might cause pages to go down temporarily, but they should be back up as soon as you transfer the domain to a new host.
Why Care About Link Rot?
You never know who is going to have a link to your site. You want your customers to bookmark your pages, but then you change the location. "My navigation is so good, they should be able to find the page, anyway." This is almost never as true as the Web developer might wish. And the reality is, you only have about 8 seconds to make a first impression. If someone types in a URL from a book they read and get a "page not found" error, chances are they won't stay on your site long enough to discover your fabulous navigation.
Don't Complain About Link Rot If You Cause Link Rot
If you've ever complained of link rot (pages with lists of links that have many bad links), and you change your page locations without compensating for it, then you are a prime contributor. Unfortunately, the person who usually gets blamed is the developer linking to you.
