While surfing through a website, we often bump into an error page stating that the “404 error page not found”.These are called broken links and are a typical issue on pretty much every site. In spite of the fact that it doesn’t appear to be a serious deal, it very well may be a genuine torment. On the off chance that you are not joking about your site and need to rank on Google, at that point broken links can hurt your SEO.
If you want your website to be high on reputation, without any broken links and error pages, you have come to the right place.
WHAT IS A BROKEN LINK?
A broken link, otherwise called dead link, is a link that does not work anymore. Broken links can occur for some reasons, yet the most well-known explanation is the point at which a page is either erased or moved to an alternate area which makes the server show a 404 not found error.
On WordPress destinations, broken links normally happen while moving a site to new space name, or while erasing a post or page without appropriate redirection.
Now and again broken links can likewise occur because of a grammatical error, and they can go unnoticed for quite a long time if not years.
This is the reason it’s critical to consistently screen broken links on your site and fix them, so you can shield them from harming your SEO rankings.
WHY ARE BROKEN LINKS A GREAT DISADVANTAGE?
Broken links are terrible for your WordPress site for a couple of various reasons.
To start with, there’s the impact on your human guests. On the off chance that somebody is clicking a link, they’re doing so in light of the fact that they’re keen on the result that they were advised the link will take them to. Bodes well, isn’t that so?
In this way, by sending them to a broken link rather than the result that you guaranteed them, you’re making a baffling encounter for your guests, and that itself is a decent motivating force to discover and fix broken links on your site.
Broken links aren’t only terrible for people, however, they’re additionally awful for robots. In particular, the crawler bots utilized via web search tools like Google.
For one thing, broken links squander your crawl value in Google. Each 404 page that a Googlebot experiences because of broken links is a live page that Google could have removed.
Past that, broken links are additionally a misuse of link value. For instance, in the event that you have a broken inward link starting with one blog entry then onto the next, you’re not getting the SEO advantage of that interior link, which is a negative for your SEO endeavours.
HOW TO CHECK FOR BROKEN LINKS?
It is just not useful to physically check each page of your site normally for broken links. This is the reason site proprietors utilize broken links programming and services.
To know about the software that permit you to examine your site for broken links. Lets have a look at the below options:
1. Google Search Console
- Earlier it was known as Google Webmaster Tools
- It produces an index coverage report presenting you with all the pages showing 404 errors
- It is a productive tool for correcting links
2. Ahrefs Site Audit
- Cost- $99 per month
- Analyses your website for all the issues present.
- It not only shows you a report of the issues present but also shows suggestions om how to resolve them.
3. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool
- Cost- £149 per year
- Reports about 404 errors and server errors.
- Provides a free as well as paid version.
4. Broken Link Check
- It provides a free version.
- It not only presents you with a report of broken links but also shows you the location where link has been published.
5. Dead Line Checker
- Cost- $9.95 per month
- You can use this as an option to Broken Link check
- It has a free version too, but going for the paid version will be beneficial.
How to fix the broken links?
If you have already found the broken links which are bringing your website’s reputation down but you don’t know what to do with these broken lines?
If this is an issue, I have had it resolved. Here I am with a list of options you can go for, if you want to get rid of these lines.
- You can change the URL Address.
- Mostly, replacing a link is not possible. If you are facing a similar problem, you can simply leave the text as it is in your page but remove its link.
- You can change the permalink that shows a broken link by using 303redirects, it will inform search engines that the link has been changed.
- Fix the internal link error by using find and replace WordPress plugin.
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