The next in my series on Google Filters looks at the Broken Link Filter. The backbone of Google’s search engine is based on links so it is no wonder that the Broken Link Filter is given a lot of attention. A broken link is when you link to a page that does not exist. Broken links usually occur as a result of either making a mistake in the link (ie missing a letter in the url) or the page expiring (it was up and was taken down and your link is still active. There are two kinds of broken links: internal and external.
Internal Broken Links

Google adds pages from your site to its index by crawling your homepage. The homepage links to subpages which in turn link to other subpages. As Google searches through these subpages, its crawlers makes a list and adds the pages. If your pages are not properly linked or if the links are broken then Google will not add your pages to the list. You can always create a sitemap that will help you, but again sitemap software uses the same crawling technology. I wrote a few weeks ago about the GSiteCrawler to help you build a sitemap. It is a free program that will also tell you when there are broken links. I use it every week to see which of the internal links I have on my site have broken down.

External Broken Links

External broken links are when you link to outside websites and they take their page down. You could, for instance, link to a fellow blog, only to find a few weeks later that the blog has closed and your link is now invalid. I have yet to find a good tool that will tell you when your external links are broken so if you have found one, please let me know!

Why This Matters

The first reason why the Google Broken Link Filter is important is obvious - if you are linking to your own pages and the links do not work, the pages will not be added to Google’s index.

The second reason why the Google Broken Link Filter is important is not as well known. Google wants to show high quality pages in their search results. The last thing they want to have coming up #1 for important keywords is a site that has old, outdated, and broken links. If your site is full of links that do not work you will be penalized for not having a high quality website and will drop in the rankings. This is especially important for your key pages. Make sure that none of your homepage links are broken and keep an eye on any links from the high Page Rank pages that drive traffic to your website!

Evan Carmichael

Our 9th Review Our Blog is from Dennis Gerik from The Niche Coach. He put up a review of our site on his blog - you can check it out here: Check Out YoungEntrepreneur.com.

The Niche Coach tries to help entrepreneurs create true, sustainable wealth, by developing a business around a clearly defined niche market or opportunity. The blog gives you ideas on how to create a product for a niche market and provides resources to get your company off the ground.

Thanks for the review Dennis! If you are interested in doing a review, check out our Review Our Blog initiative for instructions.

Evan Carmichael

American Express ran a survey to find out if young entrepreneurs were really all that different from older entrepreneurs and it turns out that we are! The main findings were:

Similarities

• Optimistic about the U.S. economy (64% young, 62% old)
• Both agree that passion, rather than money, drives them towards success

Differences 

• Having fun is a priority in business (75% young, 66% old)
• It is “very difficult” to leave work and go on vacation (39% young, 26% old)
• Put in over 10 hours a day (66% young, 58% old)
• Like to take risks (72% young, 53% old)
• Started business right out of school (27% young, 9% old)
• Immigration is beneficial to the economy (52% young, 44% old)
• Are technology savvy (66% young, 47% old)
• Belief that older entrepreneurs have an edge (59% young, 88% old)

In total 602 small business owners were surveyed - you can read the full results here.

Evan Carmichael

I came across an interesting profile of Pete Petrondas and thought I would share it with you. Pete founded Eazyfone to sell mobile phone contracts to customers and quickly built his business to 14 employees and 250,000 pounds in revenue.

Then disaster struck. Pete’s supplier pulled the plug on him and he had to let go of all but one of his staff. While trying to decide what do to with his business he came across a realization: “It was surprising how many companies asked me if I knew how they could dispose of their old mobiles in an environmentally friendly way. I then did some research and found out there were around 90m old phones lying around, and soon realised I’d stumbled on a fantastic opportunity.”
Pete create a new business model to acquire old mobile phones and resell them to new customers. To get the phones he partnered with organizations like hospitals who were looking to raise funds and encouraged people to donate their old phones. In return he would donate 25% of the resale value back to the organizations.

“It proved a great success and, because the concept was environmentally friendly, we got a huge amount of media coverage, which then enabled us to get our message across to a wide audience.”

Pete’s business is now booming. He is expecting to make 5,000,000 million pounds in revenue this year with profits of over 750,000 pounds. “That figure is ahead of our competitors, but we need to donate as much of the profit as possible to the schools and charities, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t have a business.” Not bad for a 30 year old entrepreneur whose business was all but destroyed only a short while prior.

Pete’s success demonstrates the power of effective partnerships. Find someone who can benefit while helping you and you can quickly take your company to the next level of success.

Evan Carmichael

Entrepreneur.com put out a cool slideshow that I just came across which profiles some of the most successful entrepreneurs under 40 years of age in America.

It includes people like Tina Wells, 26, founder of Buzz Marketing Group, a youth marketing agency specializing in research, events and promotions. She has $3.3 million in sales and offers the following advice for young entrepreneurs: “You can’t just buckle at the first sign of a minor disaster. You really have to keep your composure and realize at the end of the day we’re not fighting World War III here. Try not to take it so seriously.”

There is also Thomas Gorny, 30, founder of iPower, a web hosting and services company with over $40 million in sales. His secret to success? “I would say it’s drive. Nothing is good enough. Even when we reach a goal, I want a better goal.”

Another favorite is Corey Pitts, 37, founder of International Catastrophe Solutions, a $40 million disaster recovery for commercial enterprises business. His advice for young entrepreneurs is: “Surround yourself with positive people. When the days were rough and tough, [my wife] was positive [we should] keep going. I have stayed away from people that said, ‘Why are you doing it? You had a good job, you had vacation, you shouldn’t do that.’ I stay with positive people. Both sides of my family–her parents and my parents–were very positive and gave me that support.

It is a great collection of stories in a flash where you can then read more in detail if you are interested. I find reading success stories to be motivational and I always get a few new great ideas that I can implement into my own business. I hope you check it out and enjoy! Let me know what you think after you have a had a chance to go through them!

Evan Carmichael

In my continuing series on Google Filters, today I will discuss the Link Farm Filter. Google’s search engine ranks web pages according to their incoming links. Before Google put a big emphasis on getting quality links, early search engine optimizers focused on quantity. The thinking was simple - the more incoming links you have, the higher you rank, so get as many incoming links as you can.

This led people to develop link farms which were websites set up for the sole purpose of generating links back to your website. There is no valuable or unique content on these sites. The only information they have are links out to other websites. The more link farms you had set up, the more links you would have to your site and your rankings would increase. Website owners began seeing results and they continued with their link farming strategies.

Google then updated their algorithm to focus on quality links instead of quantity and the values associated with being on a link farm dropped dramatically. More recently Google has even penalized websites for being on a link farm. Now, not only will you not get the benefit of the link but your ranking can actually drop if you are linked from what is perceived to be a link farm.

Website owners who are new to the game are still falling for many of these link farming scams. It is extremely important to focus on building links with recognized, industry leading websites that have high Page Rank and not be sucked in by the offer to get any random link. Not all links are created equal and some can even hurt you!

Evan Carmichael