PB027: Update Posts In Your Archives [Day 27 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog] - a podcast by Darren Rowse: Blogger, Speaker, Author and Online Entrepreneur

How to Update Old Posts In Your Archives (including how to find Broken Links)
Today's episode is about going back into your blog archives do updates - especially paying attention to broken links. Broken links can cause many problems, including potentially exposing your readers to harm.




З Днем Незалежності Україно!!! by Olena Zaskochenko on 500pxIn this Episode
You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about:

Todaywe talk about:

Why broken links are bad for your blogHow finding broken links on your blog can create opportunities
How to check for broken links on your blogWhat to do when you find broken links
How to make checking for broken links on your blog a regular habitOther updates you could do while you're looking at older posts to bring them up to date and make them more useful to readers

Tools and ResourcesGoogle Webmaster Tools
WordPress Plugins, such as Broken Link Checker (Warning! This can slow down your site as it puts a lot of strain on your database. Be careful!)Xenu’s Link Sleuth
Screaming Frog SEO SpiderW3C Link Checker

Further Reading:One Activity You Should Do On Your Blog Every Day
3 Important Questions To Ask About Posts in Your Blog ArchivesUpdating Old Posts On Your Blog
7 Old Post Revival Techniques You Won’t Believe You’re Overlooking25 Reasons Why Google Hates Your Blog
How to Find and Fix Broken Wordpress Links: Elegant ThemesWebsite Weight Loss: Fix Your Broken Links: About Tech
Website Broken Links: Why You Should Fix Them: Dave LucasFull Transcript
Expand to view full transcriptCompress to smaller transcript viewHi and welcome to day 27 or 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we're going back into your archives to do some updating, particularly looking at broken links, but I also suggest some other things that you can do while you're there. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/27.

Hi there. It's Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 27 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog where we're giving you a different challenge every day for a month, that you can go away and do that will improve your blog in some way. The idea is that by the end of this month, you're going to have about 31 different activities that you can come back to over time. Some people do one every day for the rest of their lives, or at least for the next year or so. Others just dip into them from time to time after the 31 days. It's really up to you.

Today, we're going to look at broken links, and we're gonna go on a bit of a broken link hunt on your blog. While we're at it, I'm going to suggest some other things that you can be doing to some of your old posts on your blog. The thing with broken links is that when you create a link in your blog posts to another site, that link almost always will work right from the start, but over time, you're bound to start to get broken links. And that's because other people change their sites. 

Some people delete their sites, some people forget to renew their hosting and the site disappears. Other people change the way their site works, so their link structure might change or they might delete a post on their blog. This can cost you on your blog in two ways because of a change that someone else's makes.

Firstly, it can have an impact on your SEO. I don't really know the technicalities of it, but Google recommends that you do check for broken links. More importantly than that, it impacts the readability of your posts. If your readers are clicking links that no longer work, that's frustrating for them and they blame you for it rather than the other person. It's good to be checking for broken links.

The question is, how do you do it?

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