The ARRL has relaunched their website with a cool new look. But, in the process they made some very major mistakes that have, essentially, broken the internet.
How did they do that, you ask? Simple. They did not take into account the millions of links people have created to things on their site. In essence, they broke the damn internet!
Let’s take a look at what they did.
Look at the page on Wikipedia that references QRP operation. All seems fine, until you try to access the ARRL, QRP: What, Why and How in the notes. As of this writing, the link points to a non existent page on the ARRL server. This is not good.
Essentially, the ARRL has, by not taking the time to make a redirect page to the new location of the content, lost a viewer to their website. I, as most people will, am not going to spend my time trying to find the content that got moved. I will click the back button on my browser and just ignore that link.
So, if you are going to do a web site redesign, keep this one little idea in mind: DON’T BREAK THE DAMN INTERNET! Spend the time to make your current links work with your new content. It takes some work, but it is your fault the location of the content changed.