The Most Annoying Yet Most Important Task in Website Management

Published on Oct 16, 2008 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development, quality. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

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…is link-checking. There are tools out there, en masse, but we still have to run after professionals who neglect online fundamentals or don’t set up redirects—and with that waste other people’s time.

Personally, even though I regularly do QA this doesn’t mean I myself am always handling this perfectly. Yet whenever I check links, it’s striking to me to see so many URLs changing. Link checking is not a fun job, and, in an ideal world, shouldn’t be necessary. It shouldn’t be, and yet it is. (RIP, links.)

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, dxsrc). You’ll like my work if you value principled, pragmatic problem-solving. Let’s connect.