<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<bold>Subject and purpose of work:</bold> The subject of the research were the profiles of links (internal and outbound ones) of websites of rural tourism facilities in Poland. The purpose of the study was to assess the scale of the link rot phenomenon and its impact on the quality of websites of rural tourism facilities in Poland.
<bold>Materials and methods:</bold> The assessment of the link profile was conducted using the Broken Link Checker application. The websites’ quality assessment (the degree of their optimization for search engines) was conducted using three different applications which automate tests.
<bold>Results:</bold> A total of 919 websites were examined. Broken links were recorded on 464 sites, where approximately 65% of them had only a few broken links. Broken links that referred to the description of an offer or social media accounts were particularly unfavourable. No linear correlation was recorded between the number of broken links and the website’s optimization for search engines.
<bold>Conclusions:</bold> The research demonstrated that the scale of the link rot phenomenon was relatively small in the group of the examined sites. It seems, however, that this was not the result of conscious design measures or optimization.
</abstract>

Subject and purpose of work: The subject of the research were the profiles of links (internal and outbound ones) of websites of rural tourism facilities in Poland. The purpose of the study was to assess the scale of the link rot phenomenon and its impact on the quality of websites of rural tourism facilities in Poland.
Materials and methods: The assessment of the link profile was conducted using the Broken Link Checker application. The websites’ quality assessment (the degree of their optimization for search engines) was conducted using three different applications which automate tests.
Results: A total of 919 websites were examined. Broken links were recorded on 464 sites, where approximately 65% of them had only a few broken links. Broken links that referred to the description of an offer or social media accounts were particularly unfavourable. No linear correlation was recorded between the number of broken links and the website’s optimization for search engines.
Conclusions: The research demonstrated that the scale of the link rot phenomenon was relatively small in the group of the examined sites. It seems, however, that this was not the result of conscious design measures or optimization.

The Link Rot Phenomenon and its Influence on the Quality of the Websites of Rural Tourism Facilities in Poland

Economic and Regional Studies / Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Subject and purpose of work: The subject of the research were the profiles of links (internal and outbound ones) of websites of rural tourism facilities in...

The Link Rot Phenomenon and its Influence on the Quality of the Websites of Rural Tourism Facilities in Poland

Published Online: Apr 18, 2019

Page range: 68 - 79

Received: Dec 01, 2018

Accepted: Jan 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ers-2019-0007

Keywords
broken links, dead links, link rot, rural tourism, quality, optimization

© 2019 Karol Król, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Link Rot Phenomenon and its Influence on the Quality of the Websites of Rural Tourism Facilities in Poland

Published Online: Apr 18, 2019

Page range: 68 - 79

Received: Dec 01, 2018

Accepted: Jan 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ers-2019-0007

Keywordsbroken links, dead links, link rot, rural tourism, quality, optimization

© 2019 Karol Król, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
broken links, dead links, link rot, rural tourism, quality, optimization