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At ThaiWebsites.com we are obliged to regularly check for broken links. As our site has links to thousands of websites, this is somewhat of a laborious task.
There is some software useful to find broken links. However, nowadays this kind of automatic search reveals only about 20% of the total.
Broken links (in our situation) fall into different categories :
1. True broken links. The content of a website has disappeared and/or the domain name has not been renewed.
2. Website Under Construction. Some webmasters seem to take their website offline at a time when they are making changes. In our opinion, this is a unjustified. It should be possible to recreate a site offline, and test it offline.
3. Nowadays, the majority of domain names/websites that have been abondoned by their owners or webmasters, are picked up by a new type of scavenger : companies that buy recently expired domain names in an automated process. They then (also in an automated process) create a nice-looking entry page, with advertisements, and some suggested search results (with other advertisements). This seems to be a new lucrative business model.
This is an example of such a site :
http://www.gijwattanashoes.com/
Remember : If you click on any of the ads, money is being made.
4. Websites that have abondoned their English-language content.
5. Changed content and/or inappropriate content.
6. The URL of the entry page has changed, and the content moved to another page (serious mistake of webmaster) without a proper redirect.
We have no fixed schedule, but check for broken links about 4 times a year. Sometimes only with an automated program. But two times a year, we have to go manually through all the links on our site. While there are some gadgets that help to make it go faster, it usually takes a few hours every day for about two weeks to finish the job. So, this will end your idea that there is nothing to building a web directory. Our directory content has been copied in the past by 'competitors', doubtful that you will find any corrections there.
Our last update finished at the end of February 2008. Amazingly we found about 300 broken links. A majority of these 'broken links' had been replaced by parked domain names, as described in category 3 above. So we unwillingly contribute to people making money out of being listed on our site. So, this is something we will have to continue to fight against in the future. The number of 300 broken links is truly amazing, it is more than 5% of all listed sites, and remember we screen a few times a year. The turnover of websites seems to be much higher than before, with many web owners electing not to renew their site's registration (or being negligent about it, only to have their property picked up by domain name scavengers).
You can report a broken link by entering the URL in the box below.
(ex. www.brokenlink.com or brokenlink.com)
Also websites that seem to display unwarrented content, or parked domains sites(with only advertisements) can be reported.
We do screen the websites listed in our directory, but the only way to do it with close to 100% efficiency is to manually review all the sites from time to time. This, of course, is a laborious process, so any help is most welcome.
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