After nearly two months without a post on this blog, I'm pleased to come out of hibernation this week. One of the reasons I was unable to make time for blogging recently is because my spare time has been dedicated to a side project that we launched about 3 weeks ago.

Our team is never short on inspiration or ideas for the web, and our outlet is a little software company called Brightwurks. Linkpatch is the name of our second web application, and it is our way of solving a problem we deal with every day at Project83.

One of the more frustrating things a user can run into on the web is a broken link. Often times, it leaves the user stuck, forcing them to wander the site aimlessly looking for what they need, or become frustrated and go elsewhere.

We do a number of things when launching a website to minimize dead ends like that. We always check the site for broken links between internal pages, and setup redirects (when applicable) from any old URLs to the appropriate location on the new site.

While most geeks stop there, I don't believe that's enough. There aren't any tools that are constantly watching, monitoring when and why people run into a broken link on your site. If another website is linking to your website, but the URL is broken or out-of-date, you have no way of knowing ... until Linkpatch.

The idea behind Linkpatch is simple. It is a small script that is always watching your website's error pages. If a user ends up on an error page as the result of a broken link, the script records all kinds of information about what happened, and sends an email to the webmaster so it can be fixed.

Linkpatch has been an incredible resource, as we have been using it internally for quite some time. We have it installed on many of our websites, and if a user or customer runs into an issue, we're able to diagnose and fix it very quickly. If we make a mistake in building the site, Linkpatch usually lets us know before the client does.

Here are just a few of the uses we have had for Linkpatch recently:

• One of the URLs in a recent client newsletter had a typo. We were able to add in a redirect from the misspelled URL to the correct one.
• The shopping cart page on a client site was broken after a recent update, and Linkpatch found it very quickly.
• Links from blogs, twitter, search engines and affiliate websites that were all wrong or out-of-date were able to be caught and corrected within minutes after the first sign of an error.

Linkpatch has definitely been a big help to us in keeping our client websites error-free. We think other webmasters and web design shops will enjoy it too. Feel free to check out the site if it sounds appealing, and we always welcome any feedback. For the next 2 days, you can get a free 5-site Linkpatch account for mentioning the app on twitter. Check out this page for more info.