Imagine while you are reading a blog, you click on a link that is supposed to take you to a different topic but you are met with a broken 404 page. Relatable. isn’t it? Well, it can be frustrating and annoying for the readers visiting that website which might make them lose interest.
What Are Broken Links
A broken link is a dead hyperlink that points to a page within the same website but no longer exists. Broken links return a 404 error, indicating the page cannot be found.
There are also broken backlinks, which are essentially links that point from one website to another. If broken, evaluated backlinks can diminish the effectiveness of your link-building efforts and harm your website's reputation with both users and search engines.
Types of Broken Links
Broken links can appear in different forms. Identifying and understanding these types will help you implement the right solution. Here are some types you may have come across:
404 Errors: These occur when the linked page is no longer available, leading to a "Page Not Found" error.
Incorrect URLs: When the URL has a typo or formatting error, it makes it impossible to reach the intended page.
Moved Content: The content of the linked page is moved to a different URL without proper redirects, which results in a broken link.
Blocked Pages: The linked page is restricted, such as requiring login credentials, being behind a paywall, or blocked by a firewall.
Expired Domains: The domain of the linked site expires or is no longer active, all links pointing to it become broken.
400 Bad Request: the host server cannot understand the URL on your page
Why Are Broken Links Bad?
Even though broken links don’t have a huge impact on your website, they are still an important factor that drives traffic.
Internal links are essential to pass link juice between the different pages of a website, helping to distribute authority and improve SEO across the site.
On the other hand, external links serve to establish credibility and relevance by connecting your content with valuable resources and authoritative sources outside your domain.
Here are some key reasons why broken links are detrimental:
User Experience:
When users click on a broken link, it can lead to frustration and a poor user experience. This can cause visitors to leave the site, reducing engagement and increasing the bounce rate for that page. Google considers the bounce rate when ranking pages: if it's lower, Google values the page more highly and ranks it higher in search results. Conversely, a higher bounce rate can lead to lower rankings.
SEO Impact:
Search engines view broken links as a sign of poor website maintenance. A site with many broken links can be perceived as outdated or neglected, which can negatively affect its search engine ranking. Search engines prioritize sites that provide a seamless user experience.
Missed Traffic Opportunities:
Links and especially different backlink types have the potential to drive massive traffic to a website and can pass on link juice, which refers to the authority or ranking power that a link can transfer from one page to another (provided it is a dofollow link). In simpler terms, this helps websites gain higher domain authority, which Google values more and thus ranks higher.
Reputation Damage:
Broken links can impact brand recognition. Users may associate your website or brand with the frustration of encountering a broken link, which can damage their perception of your credibility. Too many broken links can cause you to lose visitors' trust and reliance on your website's reliability and professionalism.
How To Find Broken Links
In order to fix Broken links you need to first locate them on your website, if you are willing to spend resources to find them, there are a number of ways to do this:
For starters you can use SEO audit tools from websites like Ubersuggest or Semrush site audit which can identify the link that is broken on the page, what the hypertext for that link is and where is the link leading to.
Screaming Frog is another premium tool that can help you find broken links on your website.
If you have a small website you can actually use the FREE version which allows you to analyze up to 500 URLS.
Using this tool We will help you to locate broken links, just follow these steps to locate them:
First type the URL of your website in the Screaming Frog tool then head to “Response Codes”
Make sure to select “internal and external” so you can identify both links leading to different pages within and outside your website.
You will end up with a list of pages with different status codes, select the arrow to sort them, then click on the status code you want to view.
Go down and select “Inlinks” This will tell you where the broken link is coming from, where it’s leading to and, the anchor text for that link.
After you find the broken links make sure to either update the URL or remove the link if the page is no longer available.
If you can’t afford to pay for a premium tool you can use Google Search Console instead. Here is what you need to do:
After selecting the property you want to audit, navigate to the "Pages" tab under "Indexing." This will provide you with different reasons why certain pages are not being indexed by Google.
Scroll down to the tab “Why pages aren’t indexed” and click on “Not Found (404)”
You will end up with a list of pages with 404 errors, you can then click on any link which will make a window appear on the side. Head over to “Inspect URL”
You can now see more on the data Google has on the link