Welcome to the SEO tutorial, we have already covered paid links, and link building strategies. Today we will talk about broken link. The dead link or a broken link existence on your website will trouble you in many ways. If you are a serious blogger, then you have to check your websites for the dead links. In case you will find any or many, then don’t panic. We will discuss each and every thing related to the broken link.
Never avoid dead links, because it will affect your website health as well. The only thing you can do with dead links are, just repair or remove it. Let’s see what exactly is the broken link, and then we will share other information related to the dead links after each topic.
Must Read: What is paid links? Why to avoid or get it?
What is broken link?
A broken or a dead link means that the hyperlink has stopped working. You must have seen these links on your website or while surfing. It will just show the error page, like page not found or 404 pages.
Example
Let us understand it with a simple example. What if you will change your mobile number and your near or dear one is calling on your old mobile number. Do you think they will contact you via same old number? The big NO is the answer.
The same thing is applicable to your web pages as well. If you will move or delete a page, then how come your readers will find your page location, until you will not mention or specify a way?
Must Read: What are the link building strategies to follow?
Reasons for the broken link
Let’s see what are the known reasons for the dead links are:
- Web page’s deleted – If you have deleted a web page, then probably it will show the error. Because you have not deindexed it from the search engines.
- Wrong URL – If the webmaster will enter the wrong web address, then also the user will face the same problem.
- Website don’t exist – If the webmaster will don’t want to continue the website, then web hosts will offline it.
- Firewall Use – If firewall will not let access to the website, then you will see the error page.
Tools to fix broken link
Xenu
Smallseotools.com/websites-broken-link-checker/
Screamingfrog.co.uk/broken-link-checker/
Powermapper.com/products/sortsite/checks/link-checker.htm
Note: you can check for the updates for broken link checker tools.
Cons of the broken link
- Frustrate readers – Yes, if your reader will access a page whose link is not working, then you can imagine, what impression your website will give to that user.
- SEO degradation – It will degrade your blog’s SEO points.
- Penalty – Probably the major search engines will penalize you for having so many broken links.
- Down ranking – The broken link will ultimately affect your domain or page ranking.
Must Read: How to get High PR backlinks?
Conclusion
We have just covered broken link, its reason, tools to find the broken links and its cons as well. Just use the above mentioned tools to check dead links, and try to repair it to improve your SEO and hence your search appearance.