Why You're Not Reading As Much

A link is a promise.

When you put a link on your resume, website, GitHub profile, documentation, or product, you are telling someone: “Click this. It will take you where I said it will.”

Most people never think about that promise. They simply expect it to work. When it doesn’t, trust starts to fade before a conversation even begins.

A broken link rarely makes people angry. More often, it makes them uncertain. Someone clicks your portfolio and finds a missing page. Someone opens a demo that no longer loads. Someone visits your documentation and reaches a dead end. Different situations, same result: confidence drops.

The technical explanation is simple. A 404 error means the requested resource cannot be found. But before there is a technical meaning, there is a human one: something expected did not happen.

That matters because links are more than navigation. They are part of your reputation.

A portfolio link proves you have work to show. A demo proves a project is alive. A personal website shows that you can build something and maintain it. Small details like these shape how people perceive your work long before they speak to you.

As projects grow, things move. Websites are redesigned, documentation changes platforms, domains are replaced, and portfolios are rebuilt. Change is normal. Leaving old links broken should not be.

When a page moves, redirect it. If someone bookmarked an old article or saved a project URL, they should still end up somewhere useful. Redirects are not just technical housekeeping. They are respect for the person who clicked. Imagining showing up to someone house and they moved like 2 years ago, but there's directions to their new house, pretty sure you'll trust the guy/girl.

The stakes become even higher when you are building products. Users come to accomplish something, not debug your mistakes. If pricing pages fail, documentation disappears, or password reset links break, many users will simply leave.

A custom 404 page can help people recover, but it is not a substitute for maintaining links. The best 404 page is the one users never have to see.

Fortunately, this does not require a complicated process. Before sharing something important, click every public link. Check them again after changing domains, routes, navigation, or project names. Keep old URLs alive with redirects whenever possible. Monitor 404 logs if you run a product. Remove links you no longer intend to maintain.

The specific tool matters less than the habit.

Before an interview, your links may speak for you. Before someone signs up, your links may speak for your product. Every working link quietly reinforces the same message: somebody cares enough to keep this maintained.

That signal is small, but people remember it.

If you build something, maintain the paths into it.

If you ask people to click, make sure the link works.