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LibGuide Maintenance: Maintenance

Description

On this page, find out how to check for broken links on your guides and get other maintenance tips. Feel free to edit with things you've learned!

Checking Links

Using the Link Checker 

In LibApps, go to LibGuides > Tools > Link Checker. All "broken" links can be found here. They may not actually be broken - if it takes a second to load or if there is a login required, the link will appear broken. Google Scholar, for some reason, always appears broken in this list. 

Link Checker

  1. Click on the link to open it in a new tab and see if it is actually broken.
  2. See all of the places this link is being used. You can click on the guide name to jump to the actual link, where you can delete it if you no longer need it or can't find a good replacement.
  3. Click on the edit button to change all instances of this link (found in #2) at once.
  4. After you've made any necessary changes, click on the checkbox on the left. (WARNING: Clicking on the delete box will refresh the page and may reorder the links. If you're checking your links in order, then links you've checked and links you haven't checked will get jumbled up and you'll have to recheck everything again.) When you're done checking all of the checkboxes, click "dismiss selected" at the bottom of the page to remove the links you've fixed from the list.
  5. You can narrow down URLs in this box. For example, sometimes I will narrow down by "http://guides.library.duq.edu" to see all of the guides we've linked to that are no longer visible/published.
  6. Narrow down by your name in the Owner box to see just your broken links.

And because the link checker doesn't always work...

Occasionally, go through every link on your guides to make sure that there are no broken links, as the link checker may have missed them! This can sometimes happen when:

  • The link leads to a functioning page with a message that reads "this page has moved!" (Since it's still a functioning site, the link is not technically broken.)
  • The link leads to a totally different website than what you had originally linked to! (URLs change ownership sometimes! It's happened to us before.)
  • The link leads to a database or resource we no longer subscribe to, so a restricted access pop-up box appears. (Again, it's still a functioning site, so the link is not technically broken, but useless.)
  • The link broke within the past 7 days. (The link checker checks every link every 7 days.)
  • The link is in a block of Rich HTML and wasn't added as a "Link".

Misc. Maintenance Tips

  • Use RSS feeds in your guides so that they are always current.
  • If you're using a link multiple times in your guides, click "reuse existing link" when adding it again. This way, if the link dies, it will appear in the link checker as one link with multiple mapping counts (where the red #2 is above!) 
  • Add links as "Links" rather than inserting them into a block of Rich HTML, as they won't go through the Link Checker unless they're marked as a Link.
  • Check private guides' statistics to see if they are still being used (and therefore need continually updated.)
  • In LibApps, go to LibGuides > Content > Assets to see all links by everyone. Need to replace an old guide with a new one? Type the old guide's URL into the box and edit the mappings one-by-one. After deleting a guide, be sure to delete links, books, RSS feeds, widgets, and more from the Assets list. (Note: An item in the list will have a mapping of "0" if it is not currently being used in any of the published, private, or unpublished guides. These can be deleted.)
  • Search & Delete or Search & Replace links, words, and other forms of content using Springshare's quick video.