Having broken internal links on your website negatively affects the user experience and hampers the visibility of your site on search engines.
However, among the wide range of technical SEO improvements that can be performed on your website, the task of recognizing and fixing broken links often gets neglected. This is particularly true when trying to solve this problem on a large scale for a website with numerous web pages.
Thankfully, , with regular checks and broken link checkers, the problem of broken links can be easily resolved even without extensive technical knowledge. By including broken link checkers in your SEO arsenal, you can make the task of finding broken links more efficient. Each tool provides a dependable method to ensure that your website does not experience any issues caused by broken internal links. This article provides information on ways to repair broken internal links on your site.
What does the term “broken” internal links mean?
The term “broken internal links” refers to hyperlinks within your website that lead to pages that do not exist.
Internal links become broken when they direct to a page that generates an error, no longer exists, or cannot be found.
Why do links become broken?
There are several reasons why links can become broken. If you have multiple people working on your site and it’s a large site, these errors can easily go unnoticed.
The specific page has been deleted/removed from the website.
- There is a typo in the link URL.
- The page URL has changed, but the redirect has not been updated to reflect the change.
- During a site migration, pages undergo structural changes or changes in naming convention.
If you’re planning a site migration in the near future, it’s important to pay special attention to your links. Creating a thorough 301 redirect map can prevent loss of search engine rankings, as well as save you time by avoiding numerous broken links throughout your site.
Why is it important to repair broken internal links?
Impact on SEO
From an SEO perspective, the impact of broken internal links can be significant. One of the biggest reasons is that search engines like Google use internal links with effective anchor text as a determining factor for ranking websites.
The ability of search engines to properly index a website can be negatively affected by broken links. Pages that are not properly linked or cannot be accessed may not be indexed by search engines at all, resulting in missed opportunities for the website to be seen in searches.
Furthermore, a website with a well-connected internal structure allows for the effective distribution of link equity across its pages.The flow can be interrupted by broken links, which can reduce the value of a page or even the entire domain.
User experience
After all, the main goal of any website is to improve the experience of the person using it. No matter what aspect of marketing or web development you do, the goal should be to create a website that is easy to use and provides a positive user experience.
Finding a broken link or 404 error can quickly frustrate users and discourage them from continuing to navigate your site. If users repeatedly encounter broken links, it can reduce their trust in your site.
A website filled with broken links can make it appear neglected or outdated to both users and search engines, leading to doubts about the quality and trustworthiness of its content. A lack of trust can slowly reduce repeat visits, reduce engagement on your site, and potentially hurt your site’s rankings.
While broken internal links may seem like a minor issue, they can have serious consequences on a website’s user experience and SEO. Luckily, there are several ways to detect and fix these nasty errors.
Steps to fix broken internal links
Redirecting links
An efficient method to repair broken internal links and still preserve SEO advantages is to use 301 redirects. By implementing a 301 redirect, browsers and search engines are informed that a web page has been permanently moved.
Use 301 redirects when a page on your website has been permanently moved or deleted, but you still want to redirect users to a similar page.
Redirecting to a page that is not relevant or related should be avoided at all costs, as it can negatively impact the user experience and the rankings of your website.
Removing or replacing links
In some cases, fixing a 301 redirect may require more effort than necessary, especially if the broken link is caused by a minor error that makes the redirect unnecessary.
In this situation, once you have used one of the mentioned tools or methods to find broken links and identified the anchor point on your website, you just need to replace the old URL with the correct or updated URL. It’s important to test your updated link to ensure it correctly takes users to their intended destination.
If the linked content is out of date, unusable, or no longer exists, it is usually best to either remove the link entirely or replace it with a more appropriate resource.
To determine whether updated content is available on your website, evaluate links to outdated information. If there is a more recent version or alternative resource on your site, replace the old link with a new one.
If there is no alternative, you may want to consider including a hyperlink to a reliable external source that is related to your content and offers additional value. If neither of these options is possible, it is recommended that you remove the hyperlink to maintain the integrity of the content.
You can easily identify broken links and fix them from affecting your site in the future by following the guidelines provided above.
