Follow Friday: Routine Maintenance

(Copyright (c) 2010 Cynthia Shenette) Usually this doesn't happen. Certainly not often. This week as I was trying to catch up on my reading, I ran into a number of dead links on several geneablogs. It surprised me, because I think by nature genealogy folk are a rather persnickety lot, myself included. I will say from personal experience it is hard to keep maintenance up, particularly as you have more posts under your belt.

That being said, not only do I use my blog for sharing stories, tips, ideas, and what have you, I also use it as my personal website. You may have noticed I have a number of links at the bottom of my blog. These are links that I use on a regular basis. I have either mentioned them in a post or plan to mention them at some point in time, or I just think they are great resources other people may want to check out. This week I realized it's been a while since I checked my links to make sure they are all still active.

Going back to that persnickety thing again, I've decided to take some time this weekend do some routine maintenance. I'm planning to check and reorganize my links, add new ones, and try out a few new features. I also think I need to consider a regular maintenance schedule to keep everything in good working order. I don't want to be caught one link short of a connection if you know what I'm saying.

Do you do regular maintenance? How often? Also, if you notice another blogger with a dead link (or several), what do you do? Personally, I would like to know, but I don't know how others feel. Would it be presumptuous for me to bring it to that blogger's attention? What do you think?


Other Posts You Might Like:

Follow Friday: Who's Following You?
Follow Friday: AHA (American Historical Association) Today
Madness Monday: Splog Busters, Or My Experiment to Fight Splog
Follow Friday: Walking Pictures, Ancestry, and Free Stuff


8 comments:

Susan Clark said...

From my perspective I'd want to know, so tell me quick if mine was one of the delinked, if pictures aren't showing up, or the recipe didn't work (kidding there - no recipes posted - yet). I suppose I'd tell someone who was actively blogging - perhaps by email rather than the comments. If there weren't recent posts - probably not.

Btw, adore the Met simulcasts. Makes living in the boondocks (translate not on the East Coast) much more enjoyable.

Carol said...

I certainly would appreciate hearing if my links no worka!

Never thought of doing a maintenance routine tho. I want to hear how your approach this, steps taken, etc.

Got me thinking - -

Barbara Poole said...

Cynthia, good post. And, yes, please tell me if I am one of the ones whose links don't work.

Greta Koehl said...

Actually, beyond maintenance, I need to put up more of the links I regularly use. I have intended to do this for quite a while, but have not gotten around to it. I find the links on other blogs very helpful and wish more people had links on their blogs. But, yes, if one of my few links were not working, I'd want to be told.

Judy Webster said...

For my main Web site I periodically check links using http://validator.w3.org/checklink - but that does not seem to work with Blogger.

The Genealogy Gals said...

A good point! I would certainly want to know (although we don't have very many links, the ones there are important). So please let us know if you find a broken one. Although I am not as good as I should be about checking our blog, it drives me crazy to want to follow a link only to find it doesn't work.

Pat

Jasia said...

I'm terrible about maintenance and if you or anyone find bad links on my blog please let me know. I usually only check my links when I redo my site, which I haven't done in years. (But a fresh look is coming soon ;-)

Cynthia Shenette said...

Well, the consensus seems to be that we would like someone to tell us when our links are not working the way they should. I like Susan's idea to notify the blogger privately by e-mail if possible. That seems like a nice tactful way to handle it.

Also, not to worry ladies. I don't believe anyone who responded here had the problem links.

I'm still trying to figure out a maintenance routine. I honestly don't think I'd have time every month, but I'm thinking perhaps quarterly. We'll see how things go this weekend.

Thank you all for your comments!