I mentioned in a previous post that I verify links on my website each month.  Since some readers of this blog might have their own sites, I thought it might be helpful to share the free online “link-checkers” I use. 

I generally alternate between using two different applications.  The one I think probably does a better job is the Anybrowser Link Checker. The other is called Dead-Links.  You can find both on my Teacher’s Page under Verifying Website Links.

Both can verify links pretty quickly.  However, both also have a lot of “false negatives.”  In other words, they will identify a lot of links that just load a little slowly as dead.  So it takes some time for me to double check them.  It usually takes me an hour or two each month to both have the links automatically verified and to double-check on the supposed dead ones. 

The link checkers tend to always identify the same false negatives each month.  So once I know that those links are okay, I can just ignore them in other months when they’re flagged by the link checkers.

Of course, that leaves the problem of links that aren’t dead, but the content and owner of the linked site has changed.  Students and other teachers in my school alert me of those situations, as do other users of the site.

Of course, nothing beats the accuracy of a person checking the links.  Sometimes during the summer months I’m able to bribe one of my daughters to do it.