You are a blog owner and already heard about bad links. “Bad links” is really harmful for any website and troubled me a lot for a long time. You know, SEO is changing day by day. Now, it’s high time to fix broken links. There is no other option to stay with broken links. Because, they are not good for health websites.
So we need to fix this. To fix broken links, first and foremost, you need to know about it. In your thought, what is broken link? What do you think about it? In my point of view, whether the link is incoming or outgoing, that’s not matter which carried unreachable links are called broken links.
Types of Bad / Broken Link
Bad links or broken links are two types. One is
outgoing link and another one is an
incoming link. For
outgoing link, when you give a link to external websites and the link is not found, then it is called out going broke link. Sometimes for slug, the internal post link can be broken.
On the other hand, when you get a link from another website and the link is broken is called
incoming bad links. Maximum times we create links to our website. Some of them can be broken in my sense.
And these links can create problems. If the link is from irrelevant websites then you can suffer for a long time. Make links from relevant website. And for permalink structure changing, your website link can be broken.
Also Read: Link building techniques in SEO - Strategy and tipsWhen Broken Links Occurs In a Website?
We have several reasons to cause broken links in our website. Lack of knowledge and due to some circumference, we face this issue for many times. Here I have listed some problems that could match you.
You are the website owner and you can do everything in your blog that’s on your mind. To improve SEO, you can change the post’s slug. As a result, that can create broken links.
That happened when you restructure your website. As a result, you have a different URL. For an example, that could be happening, when you are changing from the default WordPress structure to clean URLs. Other cause of it are:
- If you removed a page, then that could be happening.
- When the website is no longer exists.
- Cause of redirection issue. When you transfer your website to a new domain and if you don’t use redirection, then that could be happening.
- Lack of site protection. Due to hacking or firewall, this problem can be happened.
Why You Should Fix Broken Links?
Who doesn’t want to provide better user experience for their users? There are lots of advantages to fixing broken links on the website. The first advantage is better user experience. When you are reading a good article and you have discovered lots of broken links that are outdated, it’s totally frustrating. This broken links reflects badly on the website and tell search engines is that the content is outdated and no longer relevant.
Second one is SEO benefit. You can improve your overall search engine ranking by fixing broken links, 400 error, and Missing images. I know that fixing broken links can boost your ranking. You also need to set up a custom 400 page for your website. Or you need to set up default 400 page. Without fixing this, your search engine may drop.
Plugins to Find Broken Links for WordPress Website
If you are a WordPress User, then you can use “
Broken link Checker” plugin to find broken links on your website. The Broken link checker plugin is a good option to check broken and bad links and to fix them. Search “
Broken link Checker” in the Plugin page of WordPress admin panel and click the “
Install Now” button. Now scan and fix the broken links.
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| Pic credit: Shoutmeloud.com |
Online Tools to Find Broken Links
There are lots of free online to find broken links. You can use
- Dead link checker,
- Free broken link checker
- Check my link chrome extension
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool (FREE / $99 Per Year)
- Power Mapper Broken Link Checker ($149)
- Link Valet (FREE)
- Link Checker (FREE) etc.
Search the above tools in Google. Just put your website url on the search bar, type the captcha code (If asked), Hit the check button . For Chrome extension add the extension to the chrome.
Google Webmaster Tool to Fix Broken Links
The Google webmaster tool is a great way to find and fix broken links. They will tell you about 404 errors and exact broken links. To get this information, you need to visit
“crawl error page” which you will get from crawl section of the main menu.
You can also use
Google Disavow Tool (Search on Google, if you can't find it) to fix broken links. But be careful to use this tool. If you made mistake to use tool, that can be very harmful for your website. Only use this tool for the links that is very harmful for your website. And I already told you the way how to find the broken links.
Final Verdict
Fixing broken links can help search engine rankings. Repairing broken links ensure your articles remain useful for readers. It makes worthy of a website. There are lots of ways to find and fix broken links. Outgoing link which no longer exists in your website is not good for SEO. Fix them as soon as possible.
Also, customize your 404 error page. I think you found this broken link fixing tips is useful for you. If you know any other way to fix broken links, then you can tell me. Keep visiting us more useful content. And don’t forget to share this post.