Working at Home on the Internet

Broken Link Checker Plugin for WordPress

A MUST HAVE if you run a Blog Carnival (or just link a lot)

 As most of you already know, I run the Working at Home Blog Carnival every week. Actually, it’s coming up on the 100th Edition in two weeks.

Now, even with weeding out all the Spam submissions and unrelated articles, I still end up with somewhere between 20-30 participants each and every week. Each of those blogs (sometimes websites) have at least two links associated with their submission.

20-30 x 2 x 100 = 4,000-6,000 links.

That’s A LOT of LINKS

That doesn’t even include the Weekly Helpful Reads, Blog Tipping posts or reference links I put within individual posts. At last count, I was well over 12,000 links over three years of Blogging. Not all of which continue to be viable due to a multitude of reasons, ie. the blog was moved, they changed their URL configuration, they just deleted the post or just closed shop. Any number of reasons can cause a link to go bad.

The point is, if you run a Blog Carnival or just link out a lot to your friends and associates, you will eventually end up with some (or a lot) of broken links. If you are just starting out, you can do as I did in the beginning, just check them one at a time. That’s all well and good until you start to run into the hundreds and then thousands of links. You don’t want your readers clicking a bad link because you recommended a site and they get an error on that page because it is no longer there. That is not a good thing.

For the past year or so, I have been depending on Xenu, a link checker that is quite good. As a matter of fact, it is one of the main reasons I have been able to keep up with the myriad of bad links that have plagued me since starting the Blog Carnival. Even though it is downloadable to a desktop and easy to use, it becomes quite cumbersome when you start hitting the number of links with which I have had to deal.

I have been able to keep the broken link problem to a minimum using that program, but I still have to remember to run it, have a different Tab open while being logged into my Blog and accessing each link individually, unlinking them manually and saving the original post. Lots of steps for something that should  be nice and simple.

Luckily for me, I found the Broken Link Checker Plugin written by Janis Elsts. (I wish I remembered where I first saw a reference to this plugin, I would have put a link to them without a doubt.)

It is an easy to install WordPress Plugin, standard installation, simple to use. It will probably take a little time to run the first time if you have never checked for bad links before, but after you have a handle on the broken link problem, this plugin will be there for you whenever a link goes bad.

My Recommendation ***** Stars

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August 19th, 2008 at 06:34pm | Posted by Joe | Carnivals, Linking, Plug-ins | 4 reader remarks | Print This Post

When the Reality of Linking Too Much Hits Home

I was going over my statistics over the weekend and noticed I started losing RSS and e-mail Subscribers recently. I have Text Link Ads in my sidebar, they allow eight (8) ad links and I had maxed out until recently. Now I’m down to Five. I had Hundreds of visits and pageviews per day, now they’re in the 2 digit realm. Everything was going really well on the Blogging Front for over two years, increasing all along the way, then…

 PLOP!

I couldn’t figure it out. I was getting busier in my consulting business as a result of what I was doing here. Writing, saying and sharing my experiences while Working at Home on the Internet. Anything that could be useful to others trying to run a Home Business was on the agenda. So, why were things starting to take a such a drastic down turn?

I was going through some of the links that I was getting and checked out all the Blogs that were linking here and came across something by J.T.Dabbagian with a list of 5 Websites for Being Productive and I quote:

Working at Home on the Internet - Another Web-Worker based website that seems to act more like a hub for productivity on the net. Its main feature is its Blog Carnivals, which are links to even more cool stuff. It seems, however, to be more of a linking blog then an site with real original content, but you should check out The Blog vs Website writing project to get something if you win. (Emphasis mine)

Now, I Really do appreciate the link and the Plug for the Blog vs Website contest, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. Did you notice the “however” part?

With almost 1100 posts, 95% of which are original content and the remaining 5% being Carnivals and Weekly Helpful Reads, I could almost feel forgotten or worse, unread. Providing Work at Homers with helpful information has always been my objective, but it seems I haven’t been doing my job of late. At least not giving my readers enough original content of my own and giving them different and new ideas to try to enhance their Work at Home Business through experiences I have faced.

So, what does this tell us (me)?

1. The old adage of “Content is King” is just as valid, if not more, than ever.
2. Link Blogs don’t get (nor do they deserve) the respect that they crave.
3. Blogs that don’t provide Real Value to their readers with originality and good content won’t last.

Being busy with the Consulting part of the business is no excuse. There are plenty of other people out there who are far busier than I and still find time to write for their readers, because it’s important to them and their community.

I am going to strive to be more on the ball and provide all of you with interesting and informative information. I will still use links, but I hope to provide you with more of my own successful and even failing endeavours so that we can learn together what it takes be a Successful Work at Homer.

Joe

Your thoughts?

July 7th, 2008 at 06:28am | Posted by Joe | Basics, Community, Linking | 3 reader remarks | Print This Post

I Was Forced To Write a Comment Policy

 Did you notice the little icon in the sidebar?

It’s been there for about 2 weeks. I thought I would quietly reward all of the people who contribute to the Blog by Commenting. And I intend to keep it there for as long as I own this site.

I never really got the reason behind “no follow” other than as a tool for the SE’s in the Fight Against Spam. Since I have Akismet, that is not really a problem any longer for me, so allowing links to get credit as a link back to the commenter is not a problem either.

However, there are always Some who try to take advantage of the kind-hearted nature of Bloggers and people that have a community built up over time by trying to get link backs for things that are Totally Unrelated to the Content of Posts or the Intent of the Blog Itself by posting Totally Irrelevant Comments just for the Sake of a Link. (sorry for the run-on sentence).

Therefore, I Have Been Forced to Write a Comment Policy. I never wanted nor did I find the need for one before, but I feel it has become a necessity. So, I will have a link to the page in the sidebar for those who have questions if I Deleted Their Comment(s).

Sorry for the inconvenience to any and all of the regulars who visit. Please don’t be discouraged from commenting. We are still a strong community and the “Do Follow” will Stay as Long as I Own This Blog.

Technorati Tags: do-follow, comments, spam, splogs, Comment Policy

May 5th, 2007 at 09:56am | Posted by Joe | Akismet, Blogging, Commenting, Community, Linking | 5 reader remarks | Print This Post