One Clear Dot

The internet is a fluid venture. Things change day to day in some cases. Although you have control over your own website,. You have no control over the millions of other sites out there. If you won website has outgoing links that lead your visitors to site over which you have no control, you should check them often.

The annoying version of this situation is when any of your outgoing links end up leading to dead sites. As I said, it is annoying, but in no means detrimental.

Here, though, is an example of the more compelling reason why you should frequently check links.

In New Port Richey, Florida the Gulf Middle School web site had to be shut down today after it was found that one of their outgoing links lead visitors to a gay-pornography site.

At first, it as assumed that someone had hacked the site and altered a link. Upon further investigation, district officials found out that the link had at one time pointed to a legit educational site. Near the end of last year that website was bought out, the domain name was dropped, and gay porn site subsequently bought that domain name.

People buy expiring domain names all of the time, hoping to capitalize on Page Rank and existing traffic. And, it is not unusual for gambling and pornography companies to buy up expired domains in bulk.

Moral of the story? Check your outgoing links.

Posted on January 25th, 2008 by onecleardot
Filed under: Blogging