How to Fix Broken Links on Your Website and Improve User Experience
Introduction:
1. What are Broken Links?
Broken Links refer to links that lead to webpages or resources that no longer exist. When a user clicks on a broken link, they’ll be sent to a nonexistent page, or a ‘404 Not Found’ error page. This will create a negative experience for visitors, and possibly cause them to leave your site.
2. Why Are Broken Links Bad for SEO?
Google and other search engines notice when a website has broken links, and this can affect your SEO Rankings. A website with many broken links is seen as poorly maintained, and makes search engine crawlers less likely to index or rank your pages.
3. How to Manually Spot Broken Links?
There are two ways to manually spot broken links. The first is to simply click on each link and see if it takes you to a web page or an error page. The second is to use an online broken link checker such as brokenlinkcheck.com.
4. How to Fix Broken Links?
Fixing broken links can be as simple as editing a link to a new URL, or deleting the link altogether. If you’ve moved a page, it’s also possible to set up a 301 Redirect, which will automatically redirect users from the old page to the new one.
5. Automatically Spot and Fix Broken Links
There are several tools that can help you automatically spot and fix broken links. Screaming Frog is a popular web crawler that can crawl your entire website and identify broken links.
6. How to Test for Broken Links?
Once you’ve identified the broken links on your website, you should test them to make sure they’re fixed properly. The best way to do this is to use a link checking tool such as W3C Link Checker.
7. Check External Links
It’s also important to check any external links on your website. External links are links to other websites, not pages on your own site. You can use the same tools to check for broken external links
8. Monitor Your Links
Once you’ve fixed broken links, it’s important to monitor them to make sure they stay working. You can use a tool such as W3C Link Checker to periodically check for new broken links.
9. Repairing 404 Pages
When a user clicks on a broken link, they typically see a 404 Not Found page. This can be frustrating for users, so it’s important to make sure your 404 pages are useful and helpful. Try adding a search bar, a site map, or links to other pages on your website.
10. Resources to Check Broken Links
There are many tools available for finding and fixing broken links, including:
- Brokenlinkcheck.com (free online tool)
- W3C Link Checker (free online tool)
- Screaming Frog (paid web crawler)
- Xenu’s Link Sleuth (free link checker)
Key Takeaways
- Broken links create a negative User Experience, which can affect your website’s SEO rankings.
- You can manually spot broken links, or use a tool such as Screaming Frog to automatically identify them.
- Once you’ve fixed broken links, periodically check them to make sure they’re working properly.
FAQs
1. What are Broken Links?
Broken Links refer to links that lead to webpages or resources that no longer exist. When a user clicks on a broken link, they’ll be sent to a nonexistent page, or a ‘404 Not Found’ error page.
2. Why Are Broken Links Bad for SEO?
Google and other search engines notice when a website has broken links, and this can affect your SEO rankings. A website with many broken links is seen as poorly maintained, and makes search engine crawlers less likely to index or rank your pages.
3. How to Manually Spot Broken Links?
There are two ways to manually spot broken links. The first is to simply click on each link and see if it takes you to a web page or an error page. The second is to use an online broken link checker such as brokenlinkcheck.com.
4. How to Fix Broken Links?
Fixing broken links can be as simple as editing a link to a new URL, or deleting the link altogether. If you’ve moved a page, it’s also possible to set up a 301 redirect, which will automatically redirect users from the old page to the new one.
5. How to Test for Broken Links?
The best way to test for broken links is to use a link checking tool such as W3C Link Checker. This will check all the links on your website, and verify that they’re working properly.
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