A webmaster or website owner’s role or responsibilities do not end when the website goes “live” and is then accessible by online visitors. There are a whole new set of responsibilities and functions that a website owner has to assume in order to make sure that the website works perfectly and is able to fulfill its intended purpose. Some of these responsibilities include providing fresh content on an on-going basis, submitting the website to search engines and setting up backlinks in order to raise the website’s ranking in search engines.

One of the most crucial responsibilities of a website owner is to check for broken links on the website. Broken links are one of the most serious problems that a website can have. The primary causes of broken links are: websites not being maintained properly, the architecture of the website constantly changing and the large number of websites that close down thereby eliminating any links to those websites.

Hyperlinks are a very important component of websites because they aid in the navigation of webpages and point to external web resources. Link management is a very important and essential part of maintaining a website. Broken links can cause a visitor to have negative perceptions about the website and can affect whether visitors return to the website

From a technical perspective, broken links can stop a search engine robot dead in its tracks thereby preventing it from completely mapping out a website. In addition, a website that is riddled with broken hyperlinks gives visitors a very bad impression.

Fortunately, there are a growing number of utilities that can help webmasters locate broken links. e.g. xml-sitemaps.com will create sitemaps and also look for broken links in a website.