Broken links can be a real problem that may effect your search engine ranking. Search engines can have problems properly indexing your site and navigating through the pages. On top of this you may end of driving visitors away as they find themselves navigating back to your error pages or server files. If Google starts to see this you risk it thinking your site is under construction or no longer in use so not beneficial for ranking.
You are not alone
There’s a huge amount of broken links across the web and not just on small websites, often big brands are guilty to. Most broken links can be found across old pages that haven’t been updated in a while in particular where URL structures have changed.
It is also important to check for outbound broken links after all you don’t want to send your visitors off into no mans land with your reputation on the line.
Google offers a web building overview for webmasters called Webmaster Guidelines. This page gives us just over 20 key points to help us meet their standards. One of those points is to “check for broken links and correct HTML”. So if Google feel it’s important enough to add to their key points, rest assured you should follow.
Imagine Google taking various internal pathways to journey through your site and every time it reaches a broken link it is like finding a gate that it cannot unlock so it turns back.
Find those broken links today
There are no excuses for not finding broken links as there are lots of tools out there that will automatically find them for you. You can use https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/ for instance or numerous applications if you are running a wordpress website. You just need to deal with it and when you do, start reaping the rewards of your new search engine and visitor friendly website.
