As we enter the month of August and your school’s summer website updates are (hopefully!) being completed, don’t neglect to address two very common issues that are easy to overlook–but simple to fix, using the right tools. These problems are (1) old pages on your website that are still displaying on search engines, and (2) pages on your site with broken links.
1. IDENTIFY & ELIMINATE OLD PAGES
I recently looked up the name of a school administrator I was interested in getting in touch with. According to my Google search, he currently works at two different schools (in different states) at the same time! Two schools list him on their site as an employee.
One site, of course, is simply outdated. (As it turns out, he left that school five years ago!) But with a complex website like a school’s, it can be hard to realize when this happens.
The easiest way to identify which old pages are still displaying in search results is to do a site-wide search on Google. Type site:YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM and it will list out all of the pages that are currently indexed, which means they will potentially show up in someone’s search results.
It may take some time to scroll through all of the search results. But the likelihood is high that you will find pages that are outdated and no longer relevant, and then it is simply a matter of deleting them from your site.
(This tool can also be used to search for key words on your site. Type site:YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM KEYWORD and it will search your site for all the pages that use that particular word or phrase.)
2. FIND & FIX BROKEN LINKS
Another common problem that typically takes a long time to discover is when a page on your site links to another page that no longer exists. Perhaps a blog article on your site, written six years ago, quoted from and linked to a story in the news that is no longer at the same URL. Users who click the article will encounter the frustration of a broken link.
Fortunately, there are many websites that will crawl your site to search for broken links. One of these is deadlinkchecker.com. Simply enter your site’s URL, and it will list out all your pages that have links that are no longer valid.
KEEP YOUR SITE FRESH AND UP TO DATE
Managing a school website requires keeping an eye on quite a few elements that are easy to overlook.
Check out our free resource, School Website Summer Checklist: 39 Essential Updates, to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Send us an email if you would like to discuss ways we can help you maintain your website to keep the content fresh for current and prospective families.
