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Have you ever clicked a link, only to land on a dreaded 404 error page? 

It’s a common, yet frustrating, experience. These “broken links,” also called dead links, are URLs that lead to pages that no longer exist.

They can be either internal, linking to other pages within your site, or external, pointing to sites outside your domain.

Broken links pose a serious threat to your website’s SEO. These also make a bad user experience. They can hurt your search engine rankings, hinder your website crawl and waste your resources.

This will drive people away from your website.In this guide, we will cover all the important aspects. You’ll learn How Can I Find Broken Links And How Do I Remove Them to ensure your website is healthy and user-friendly.

Summary

“Broken links can cause big problems for a website. They hurt SEO, ruin user experience, and can lead to fewer sales. This guide showed you How Can I Find Broken Links And How Do I Remove Them. It’s key to find broken links and fix them using tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console. You can use 301 redirects. You should also plan your URLs and check your site often. Fixing broken links keeps your site healthy and helps your website thrive.”

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What is Broken Link

Links that take users to pages that are not yet present on the website are deemed broken.

Additionally, a 404 Page Not Found error message appears when a user clicks on this type of link.

Broken links are harmful to a website, both from the point of view of users and search engines. 

If there are more broken links on the website then the search engine ranking of the website should suffer.

Simply put, a broken link is one for which the webpage is not currently live. 

For every 404 error you see, your website has broken links. 

A broken link is also known as a dead link.

The Devastating Impact of Broken Links

Broken links can cause some big issues for the site: they harm the search engine’s rankings and result in a poor user experience. Let’s explore those ways.

SEO Impact:

• Crawl budget: Search engines have this thing called crawl budget. It’s the time the search engine will spend on your site. Broken links only waste this time. The engines will try to crawl these dead links instead of finding great content. This slows down the search engine, delaying the important pages from being found.
• Signals of Low-Quality Site: Search engines regard broken links as a sign of being low-quality. Where Google and other search engines have various factors, they thus rank a site. Broken links denote that a site is regarded poorly.
• Loss of Link Juice: When an internal link breaks, it essentially means an abandonment of link juice. Link juice is the value passed from one page to another, and the broken link stops that flow.

User Experience Impact:

• Annoyance and Bounce Rate: Nobody wants broken links. They annoy the users, and in turn, they leave the website-a process known as bouncing.
• Brand Trust Damage: Upon seeing broken links, it is clear that the website looks unprofessional. It looks like your site is not being updated properly, which makes the user lose trust in your brand.
• Inhibitor To Conversion: Such links can seriously affect sales and sign-ups. The customer who comes onto a broken link is stopped from doing what you want him/her to do, mainly procuring a product or signing up for your service.

Case Study: Imagine an online store selling shoes. The landing page contains a broken link leading to a 404 error. A customer wanted to buy that product, but the store missed out on this sale. 

Real-time Data: Broken links definitely contribute to a dip in website traffic. Broken links may well lose your sales as well as rankings with search engines. You should get them fixed as soon as possible to avoid such losses.

Read This: How to use Internal Links for Better Ranking on Google?

Reason for becoming Broken Link

By this point, you should know what Broken Link is. 

Let us now examine the process by which broken links are made. 

Because if you don’t understand why the link is broken, you won’t be able to find a solution. 

The following list of reasons:

Delete the post or page

When you delete one of your pages or posts, this is the most likely reason for broken links. When you delete a post or page from the website, the item is no longer there and its link is considered broken.

Change Permalink

Changing the permalink-based URL of a post or page is another factor that contributes to broken links. Even if the URL changes, a broken link is still created. However, if you previously changed your website URL from https”//example.com/post-name to https”//example. com/category/post-name, then the old URL of your website will be considered broken.

From Comment

Broken links also appear in the comments section of the website. When users comment on your post, they also include the URL of the blog post from their website. However, if he later changes the URL of the webpage or removes it from the comment, a broken link is also created on your website.

From External Link

In addition, we include external links in our blog posts. However, it also becomes a broken link if the owner of that link later removes the page that was linked from that link.

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How Can I Find Broken Links And How Do I Remove Them?

How to Find Broken Link

Now the reason for the broken link is clear to you. 

Then you will know how many broken links are there on your website. 

I have described two techniques for detecting broken links below:

Using Plugin

If you use WordPress then it is very easy for you to find broken links. The Broken Link Checker plugin must be installed and activated. After that, you will reach its warehouse where you can see the list of every broken link on your website.

Using Online Tool

Another method is to use an online tool to find broken links. If you search “broken link checker” on Google, you can easily find broken links using several tools.

Check your broken website URL link by opening these tools. This tool will detect every broken link on your website after you solve the captcha directly.

• Broken Link Checker
• Deadlinkchecker.com
• Drlinkchecker.com

How to remove Broken Link

After you’ve discovered it’s time to fix the broken link. 

Once broken links are detected, they can be quickly fixed.

By 301 redirection

The most efficient way to fix broken links is to perform 301 redirects. 

You can redirect a broken link to any page that is currently available on your website using redirection.

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Fixing Broken Links: Strategies and Techniques

Once you find broken links, you must fix them right away. Here’s how to do it:

• 301 Redirects: This is very important for SEO. Redirects tell search engines that the page has moved.
  • Explanation: A 301 redirect tells search engines that a page has moved permanently.
  • .htaccess Implementation (or server configuration): You can add code to your .htaccess file to set up redirects.
    • Here’s an example:

Redirect 301 /old-page.html /new-page.html

• Use this code for Apache servers.
• Nginx Configuration: You can also set up redirects for Nginx servers.
• WordPress Redirect Plugins: Plugins like Redirection can help you do this easily.

Finding Similar Content: Find a page that has similar content to the broken link.

• Explain: Use search engines. You can use the site: search to find pages on your site. You can also use Google search operators.
• Relevance: Make sure the new page is very relevant to the old page.
• Example: Search for “site:yourdomain.com old-url” to find pages on your site.

Updating Links: Change the broken links to the new URLs.

• Internal Links: Update the links on your site that point to broken pages.
• External Links: Contact the owners of other sites. Ask them to fix the links to your site.
  • Here is an email template you can use:

Subject: Broken Link on [Website Name]

Dear [Name],

I found a broken link on your website: [Link to the broken page]. This link points to a page on my site, [Your Website], that no longer exists.

Could you please update the link to [New URL]?

Thanks for your help!

[Your Name]

Link Reclamation: Find places where your brand or content is mentioned. Check if these links point to a broken page.

• Explain: Search for mentions of your brand.
• Outreach: Contact the site owners to fix the links.

Removing Broken Links: Remove a broken link if there is no good replacement.

Broken Images:

• Finding and fixing: Find broken image links. Replace them with the right images.
• Example: Use a search engine to find images for each broken link.

Types of Broken Links

It’s key to know the types of broken links. This will help you to fix the problems faster.

• Internal vs. External: Internal links connect pages on your site. External links point to other sites. You must check both types to make sure they are working.
• 404 Errors (Not Found): This is the most common type. It means the page does not exist. This can happen if a page is deleted, or if there is a wrong URL. This is a very bad experience for users.
• 410 Errors (Gone): This is similar to 404, but it tells search engines that the page has been permanently removed.
• Server Errors (500, 503): These are errors on the server. These errors make your website unavailable. This can hurt the user experience and crawl of search engines.
• Broken Image Links: These happen when an image is missing or the link is wrong. This looks bad and can be a bad experience for the user.

Read This: What is URL Canonicalization? Advantages, Errors & Tools

Breaking the Death of Links: Drastic Solutions

To prevent broken links is best; indeed, there are several steps.

URL Planning: URL planning is essential.

• Best Practices: A URL must be short less confusing and subject to change as little as possible.
• Static URLs: Dynamic URLs may end up being long and troublesome. Try avoiding them altogether.

Management of Content: Management of the content base of the site is equally important.

• Internal Linking: Well-thought-out strategies are used for internal linking.
• Auditing: Audits should be done regularly to catch broken links before ruining everything.

URL Structure: It has to have the same structure.

• Consistency: URLs should be consistent.
• No or lesser use of Special Characters: Special characters such as “%” or “#” should not be used typically in URLs.

Management of Coherence: Track 301 redirects.

• Redirect Tracking: A record of those redirects is maintained. Doing so helps avoid “redirect loops.” 

Advanced Strategies and Considerations

Some additional pointers are to help you avoid mistaken dead links.

302 vs. 301 Redirects:

• Explain briefly what they refer to so everybody understands it: A 301 is for permanent moves while a 302 is used for temporary moves.

410 Gone and SEO:

• When to use: You should communicate with search engines that a page is gone permanently using a 410 status code when a page is permanently gone.

Server Configuration:

• Use this cautiously: Check the server settings so everything is properly configured.

Broken Link Monitoring:

• Automated solutions: The best solution is to use tools that often check a site.
• Reports and alerts: Set up alerts so that you can know when a broken link appears.

Read This: 45 Best SEO Tools for Google for SEO

Conclusion

Finding and fixing broken links is a must for a healthy website. It will give you a boost in your rankings. You now know how to find broken links and fix them. You can use tools, like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console. Use 301 redirects to fix broken links. Also, plan your URLs carefully and audit your site often.

Start checking your website today. You can set up monitoring to find broken links faster. You may also want to talk to an SEO expert. This helps keep your website running great.

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