Fix Your Fucking Links

So, I was reading my e-mail today, thinking about giving JW a shout out, when out of the corner of my eye, I spied an ad that caught my interest. It was advertising a three generation mother, daughter, granddaughter necklace. Now, since my mother's birthday is coming up and since I have no gift yet, I clicked away. Maybe, I thought, this would be just the thing.

I am a particularly good catch for advertisers. I'm a sucker. I buy things I don't need or have money for. So does my husband. Among his 12 Stepping, he counts Debtors Anonymous meetings, where he is currently busy admitting his powerlessness over money. Creditors hate us, but advertisers? They really, really love us.

So, good for you lifesendlesscircle.com. That ad worked! You got me, a perfect target customer, to click through and look at your product. Yay! Ad budget well spent for you. And I even liked the necklace; it was pretty. But what was that I saw at the bottom of the page? A link? You also sell earrings in the same design? Why that would be even better! I clicked it. Oh, no you didn't, people! The link didn't work: 404 not found. That's ok, I clicked "Products" instead. There were the earrings. I clicked on them for more information; after all, maybe it was just the one link that was broken. Nope: 404 not found. Well, whatever. At least I saw some kind of picture. Now how do I buy those suckers, and can you ship them in time for Mom's birthday?

That was when I saw the "Locate a Store" link. Oh, if there is anything that pisses me off more than the dreaded "404 not found" error, it is companies who advertise online but only sell through brick and mortar stores. Come on. That is so 20th century! But, desperate to give this lame ass company my own hard earned blogging ad revenues, I gave it one last valiant effort. Maybe if I clicked through to one of their distributors, the distributor would have a fucking online store where I could get a pair of earrings Fed Exed to me in time for Mom's birthday. So, I took a deep breath and selected my state from the drop down menu to find a retailer near me. And nothing happened. Nothing! No message letting me know there are no retailers in my state. Just nothing. That same stupid web page just sat there, mocking me with it's lack of movement; laughing at my inability to give it money.

So, retailer dudes, let me give you a clue, as someone who has been putting together web sites and shopping online since the dawn of the fucking Internet: before you go throwing money at Google to get them to post your ads enticingly (and effectively!) within my Gmail inbox, check your fucking links and test your site on different browsers! And since you're too stupid to know you should do this, I'm assuming you're too stupid to check your own fucking code, so let me give you another clue: there are software programs that will even do this for you! Damn. Until then, have fun watching your money slip away and your business fail.