What is a Broken Link? What Causes a Broken Link and How to Do Fix It?

What is a Broken Link?

Getting around a webpage or getting from one website to another is done by clicking on different links. These links allow for users to quickly make their way across the internet, and having them in perfect working order is the best way to ensure that users have a good experience with your webpage. A broken link refers to web pages that cannot be found or accessed by users due to an issue with the link being clicked on. There are a number of different reasons why certain links would be broken, and ensuring that you find out the reasons behind the issue and get it fixed as quickly as possible is extremely important. If a user cannot use the links on your webpage, you could have just lost a potential customer. When it comes to SEO, anything that affects the amount of traffic that makes its way to your webpage is considered to be an important factor that you need to consider, so checking broken links and making sure that you fix them is one of the ways that you can improve your websites SEO. The following are the two kinds of links that should be monitored and checked when looking for broken link issues on your website. 

İnternal Links

Internal links refer to the links that are on your website, internally linking your content and helping users navigate through your website. When there are issues with these links, it makes it impossible for users to make their way through your content, and often they will get fed up with the various linking issues and go back to the search engines results page to look for a new website to click on. Ensuring that your internal links are in working order and can take users through your website quickly and easily is imperative to succeeding when it comes to SEO! 

External Links

External links refer to the links that take a user from one domain to another or one website to another. These types of links make it easy for web users to go between different websites as relevant links grab their attention. It is important to have external links from reputable websites on your own web page, as these links are referenced and may impact your own SEO if they are not from reputable websites. 

What Causes Broken Links?

When thinking about how to check a website for broken links, it is important to first understand how these broken links occur. There are many reasons why the links on your webpage may be broken, but one of the most common is that there are broken elements on a page that need to be changed or fixed. This could be anything from issues within the HTML code to interference in normal processing due to a plugin, no matter the reasoning it is important that the issue be found and rectified before it can negatively impact your SEO. 

What Are The Examples of Broken Links Error Codes?

When there is an issue with a link, either internal or external, you will be notified of the issue by being taken to a page with an error code on it. These error codes let you know more about the issue and potential ways that it could be solved. The following are a few examples of the error codes you may see when you click on a broken link. 

• 404 Page Not Found: the server that a user is using cannot find the webpage, meaning that it does not exist. 
• 400 Bad Request: This error code signals that the server cannot read or understand the URL of the page the user is trying to visit.
• Bad host: The hostname that is being used is invalid and therefore the server cannot be reached.
• Bad URL: there is an issue with the URL that was typed in, one of the most common mistakes is that a bracket or colon is missing. 
• Bad Code: The HTTP code for the response is not valid. 

What Impact Do Broken links Have On your SEO

When thinking about how to check broken links on websites, it is important to understand the impact that these kinds of issues can have on your SEO.

• UX (user experience): Broken links can greatly impact the experience that a user has with a web page, and clicking on a link to only have it take you to an error page is extremely annoying for users. One of the main reasons why broken links are an element of SEO is because links are a way that users interact with a page and if that interaction cannot happen, a user will more than likely leave a website. Search engine crawlers index pages according to how valuable the information is according to a search query and they need to make sure that the best and most reliable website and content are the first to show on search engine results pages. Having broken links is a way that the user experience is harmed and therefore search engine crawlers are not likely to rank a page highly if they can detect the presence of broken links. 

• Bounce rate: Bounce rate refers to the amount of time that users spend on a web page. The bounce rate is important because it lets a search engine know how valuable a user finds your information, if they are on the page over an extended period of time, it means that the information, data and website is reliable. When a website has broken links, more often than not, users will choose to leave the webpage and find a more reliable source of information. This quickened bounce rate will lead search engines to associate your webpage as one that does not have reliable information or is not optimised with good features. 

How to Fix Broken Links?

When looking at some of the best ways to determine how to remove broken links from websites, it is important that you learn first the ways that you can monitor and fix these issues. Fixing broken links involves monitoring all links, both internal and external and using a website broken link finder to look for issues that may have occurred. With so many different potential issues to consider, it is important that the broken link error code be ackwodleged as this can help you to determine how you fix it. Going through the correct procedures will ensure that these links are fixed quickly, with limited impact on your SEO. 

How Does Repairing Broken Links Contribute to Your SEO?

One of the main things to think about when looking at the impacts of broken links on SEO, is the user experience. Though most search engine algorithms do not look directly into broken links and issues surrounding them, it is important to understand that broken links have negative impacts on the user experience and affect how a user is able to interact with your webpage. When there are issues with links, and users are unable to easily and quickly make their way to your webpage, it often leads them to leave the page, without having even interacted or read the information or data that you have on that page. The reasoning behind why the issue occurred and the steps that one needs to take to fix it are not important for the user, and they will more than lilley simply leave the page without attempting to figure out the issue. 

One thing to remember is that on a search engine like Google, there are hundreds of thousands or different results for a user to choose from and if your page is not up to scratch or presents issues for the user, they are simply going to leave your page and go look for the information elsewhere. Repairing broken links therefore increases your chances of being well received by users and ensures that they will be more likely to use the information or product that you have provided as opposed to going to your competitors. 

What Are The Tools To Find Broken Links?

Broken Link Checker

Broken link checker SEO tool is one of the best plugin resources to use when it comes to broken links. This plugin is able to find and report back on any and all broken link problems that may occur throughout your website. This tool is also able to supply you with the best course of action to take to rectify the problem quickly! The issues are reported on a platform that is easy to navigate, ensuring that you are aware of any issues that may come up, things like comment spamming are checked thoroughly and regularly. When thinking about how to find broken links in WordPress, The broken link checker plugin is one of the best for this platform. 

Screaming Frog

When using the free version of Screaming Frog, it is possible for you to obtain information from the URLs of up to 500 pages. In order to do a broken link analysis on this SEO tool, you would need to enter your own URL, which will then scan the webpage and find any issues. This tool is able to determine exactly where the issues are, making it much easier for you to rectify the issues. Along with an easy to use interface, the screaming frog platform is able to scan both internal and external links, meaning all broken link issues will be picked up on. 

Google Search Console

When thinking about how to find broken links with google analytics, using Google search console is the best chance you have of finding and solving all broken link issues. This tool is able to create a broken link report, ensuring that you are fully aware of any and all internal linking issues.

SEMrush

SEMrush has developed a great auditing software tool that will allow for you to easily monitor and fix issues that may plague your website. This suite of tools also ensures that you are equipped with all of the information to understand the ins and outs of your website, gaining an important understanding into why certain issues occur and the best ways to fix them. 

Ahrefs

The Ahrefs platform is a great tool to use if you are hoping to monitor and do a broken link analysis. Through completing a site audit, which picks up on broken links and other issues on your webpage, you can scan both internal and internal links for issues as well as receive constructive advice on how to solve the issues that may be affecting your webpage. 

How Do Markethinkers Find Broken Links And Fix it?

When it comes to your website’s SEO, nothing is more important than user experience. Though broken links do not directly impact the ability of your web pages to rank highly, it does impact how a user experiences and is able to interact with your webpages. WHether you are looking to find the best tool to complete a broken link report or are looking for a skilled team of experts to help carry out a broken link test, we here at Markethinkers have an assortment of tools and a wide and knowledgeable base of professional SEO consulting and SEO copywriting experts who can help you to manage and fix any issues with regards to your links, both internal and external. 

For all your SEO needs and requirements, look no further than our team of Markethinkers!