Never Break the Chain

"With so many professionals paying so much attention and money to SEO efforts," says Jeff Blum of MBA Depot, "I am shocked by a huge mistake I see made repeatedly—site redesigns that break old links."

You've earned links by producing good content, and each one comes with plenty of dividends. "It drives visitors, enhances your site's reputation and contributes to enhanced search engine results," he notes.

"Broken links destroy all those benefits. If a web page is valuable enough for someone to link to, then it is valuable enough to maintain."

Doing so takes little effort, even when migrating to a new technology platform. According to Blum, any competent webmaster can handle the task—all you need is a small script for 301 redirects that alert search engine spiders to a permanent move.

And during the transition, Blum recommends, pay close attention to 404 pages.

"This might be overkill," he notes, "but could be useful in the days following a redesign. By monitoring 404 pages, you won't have to rely on visitors to point out your broken links."

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