Re: Test for broken links

[Eric Ray <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>]

Tracy Boyington wrote:
> > We have a webpage with a long list of links pointing to other relevant sites from the net. These sites have been researched by the business specialists. Now the issue is, how does one check if these links are active(not broken, lost, moved,etc.). This is presently being done manually. Is there some way of automating the process or a software tool available?
> 
> What a coincidence... we were just talking about this in staff meeting last week, as I was recruiting human link checkers. My supervisor told us about a publication that listed a very innocuous, very legitimate link that apparently gave up its URL, which was then taken by a porn site. I don't know of any link checking software that checks for content, so I think I'll stick to humans. :-)

Sigh. Yes, tis true. Among other publications that got dinged by that
one was the HTML for Dummies Quick Reference (Ray and Ray, authors). 
We got an out-of-the-blue note from an irate reader and irate 
publisher wanting to know why we'd put in a link to a porn site. 
Sigh. That was interesting. Don't think the reader ever believed us. 

Now, of course, we include disclaimers about "All URLs verified at
time of publication" and minimize the number of external "this is
a good resource" links in printed documents. 

The problem is that sites can change overnight...and how to keep up
with drastic content changes? 

Eric
BTW, try Linklint for automatic link verification.