Many tech savvy Internet users love RSS news feeds to keep up to date with the latest articles and news of their favorite websites. Unlike bookmarks however RSS news feeds cannot be checked for dead sites that do not get updated.
Rarst posted a process on his own website that makes it possible to check all feeds for dead links. The process can be broken down to exporting all feeds in an opml file, extracting the links into a new text file and checking the links with a link checker.
Some feed readers might provide an easier way of discovering dead blogs either because the owner abandoned it or deleted the website completely. Google Reader for one is offering a feature called Subscription trends which show inactive feeds. Users have to click on the Trends link in the top left menu and choose the inactive tab under Subscription trends to get there.
The user can display the top 10, top 20 or top 40 inactive blogs. The name of the blog and the data of the last update is shown in the menu afterwards. It is then easy to unsubscribe to blogs that have not been updated by clicking on the trashcan icon.
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Thanks for the link, Martin. :)
I am aware that some readers handle problem better than others but there are still numerous that don’t. I aimed for a simple guide that is not dependent on a reader app used – as long as it is able to export in OPML.
There is also additional bonus to my method that you can spot redirects and replace links on those feeds so you can save some time and DNS lookups.