I was doing a routine check on one of my earlier blogs, when I noticed a couple of the links were out of date. In correcting them, I found to my horror that a whole string of main navigation links on Techwatch were broken!
This wasn't a minor matter - literally, most of the left hand navigation links into the forum were broken:
<blockquote>
Satellite forums:
Satellite Receivers:
Cable forums:
</blockquote>
What had happened is at some point the main categories in the forums had changed.
Previously they had been running on .html extensions, but now were ending in folder.
So /forums/eurovox.html had become /forums/eurovox/
The really amazing part is that this was not noticed, and that for probably a couple of months, the main navigation on the site has been sending users to non-existent URLs which redirected back to the forum homepage.
It's a remedial error and it should never have happened, and while it wouldn't have had a major impact on the site usability, it was still unwelcome, unwanted, and totally unnecessary.
The lesson is, whenever making even minor changes to your URLs, double check your navigational menus and other user pathways to make sure you're maintaining their integrity.
After all, a main menu of broken links isn't going to help the perception of anybody's brand.
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