Improve Your Website: Finding and Repairing Broken URLs
Broken URLs have the ability to throw a wrench in the works, reducing your website’s overall efficacy. For starters, dead-end URLs have a detrimental influence on the entire user experience. Arriving at error pages instead of the desired destination, like any usability difficulties, erodes users’ faith in your site. You may say goodbye to frequent site visits, conversions, and brand loyalty if you don’t build trust.
To make matters worse, broken links gradually erode your site’s SEO. As broken URLs accumulate, your link signals deteriorate, forcing search engines to lower your ranks. As a result, fewer people will find your website. Unless you repair your links, this vicious cycle will continue indefinitely, allowing your competitors to easily outrank you.
Luckily, you can actively seek and repair faulty URLs to keep your website working smoothly. It’s also simple. Are you ready to begin? Simply follow this tutorial to locate and repair all of your broken links.
How to Detect Broken Links on Your Website
To genuinely assist your site design shine, you should look for faulty URLs on a regular basis. However, you do not need to do it manually. Simply use one of the free or paid tools to instantly identify any dead-end links on your website.
- Ahrefs Broken Links Checker
The Ahrefs Broken Links Checker allows you to scan your site for dead URLs on a regular basis for free. Simply enter your domain, configure it to check down to the subdomain level, and click Go. The system will produce a simple list of all of your broken links. You may also set the program to crawl your site on a yearly, weekly, or daily basis.
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics delivers a variety of information about the performance of your website. Go to ‘Behavior,’ then click on ‘Site Content > All Pages.’ Next, pick the ‘Explorer’ tab, specify your data settings, and then click on ‘Page Title’ in the ‘Primary Dimension’ section to get information regarding broken URLs. Finally, choose ‘Advanced’ to establish a page title filter and search for all of your site’s 404 pages. To identify all broken links, use whatever name you gave your error pages in the CMS.
- Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer
The Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer is more than simply a broken link checker; it delivers an in-depth analysis of your website’s health. The system will return 1,000 log events overall for one website when utilizing the free version. If you require more or have extra websites to examine, the premium edition is for you. In any case, you’ll need to download the program in order to utilize it.
- WordPress Link Checker Plugins
To discover dead URLs on a WordPress site, just install a plugin like the Broken Link Checker. You just need to download the plugin and activate it through your WordPress dashboard. Once you’ve found and fixed the faulty SEO URLs, we recommend removing your chosen plugin until you need it again. Otherwise, it may cause your website to slow down and negatively damage its overall performance.
Add inspections for broken links to your search engine optimization audit methods for the greatest outcomes. Your efforts will assist guarantee that your SEO tactics get the desired outcomes. Furthermore, you may be confident that you have gone above and beyond to improve the client experience.
Quick Way to Repairing Broken URLs on Your Website
Once you’ve identified all of the broken connections, it’s time to repair them. You should begin by placing them all in a spreadsheet so you can track your progress. Then, start going through them one by one.
Depending on whether you’re working with internal or external links, your strategy to resolve broken URLs will change significantly. Here’s an overview of what you might need to accomplish.
1. Internal Links
Internal links frequently break when you make modifications to your website. However, sometimes the issue is as simple as a misspelling. Keep an eye out for excess or missing characters in the links as you search for and correct problematic URLs.
Your options for the rest are as follows:
- Create the Page Again
Your broken URLs might refer to a page that has subsequently been deleted from your website. At that point, all of its internal links lead to nothing, perhaps alongside backlinks that would otherwise drive traffic your way. To resurrect the dead links, simply rebuild the page. Before you do so, make sure the content coincides with your marketing plan, otherwise, it will be for naught.
- Redirect creation
If you do not intend to restore the previous page, implement a 301 redirect instead. This redirect, which Google recognizes as a permanent relocation, transfers the link equity of the old page to the new one. Simply select a different page with identical material – or, as a last resort, use your home page.
This step may be completed by utilizing a WordPress plugin, such as Simple 301 Redirects, or by accessing your website’s root folder using your file manager. You’ll need to build or alter the .htaccess file while working in the root folder to redirect each broken link to the new page.
- Link Deletion
It’s often easier to simply remove a broken URL and start over. You may then return to the page in question and locate a new location for an internal link. While keeping the user experience in mind, look for anchor text that is related to other pages on your site. Remember to review your marketing approach and emphasize your primary focus areas whenever feasible.
2. External URLs
When it comes to resolving faulty external URLs, you have two options: update the link or delete it entirely. After all, you have no influence over whether or not the content exists. As a result, your alternatives are restricted.
- Link Replacement
Whether you wish to change the link, first check to see if the site owner has simply relocated the page. Otherwise, create a new page to back up your statistics, statements, and other citation-worthy stuff. Alternatively, you may wish to update the section to better suit new data that has emerged after it was initially published.
External links are frequently directed to a partner or a site with which you have a pre-existing relationship. In this situation, contacting a contact at that organization is absolutely normal business behavior. An external link for you is a source of traffic for them. It improves both sites’ SEO to keep the link alive, thus they may provide an alternative URL to which you may point, or they will construct something new. The goal is always to provide a pleasant reading experience, but SEO and partner relationships are a huge plus.
- Broken URLs Removal
When you just cannot locate a suitable replacement for the broken URLs, simply erase the link and go on. Although keeping functional external links helps your SEO performance, you may be better off focusing your efforts elsewhere for the time being.
Though time-consuming, fixing broken links improves your site’s trustworthiness and search rankings. If you stick with it, the process will speed up since your efforts will keep internal and external linkages active and functioning for you.
Do You Need Assistance Finding and Repairing Broken URLs on Your Website?
For the greatest outcomes, schedule a website audit replete with bad link inspections every quarter. Regular site check-ins can let you sail through this procedure while keeping a tight eye on your SEO performance.
However, finding and fixing faulty URLs for SEO purposes is only one piece of the jigsaw in building a trustworthy website. Of course, a striking site design with outstanding content, dynamic graphics, and simple navigation are important.
Look to our staff at Freedom Media Group for assistance in getting your site just as you want it. We can create your ideal website and then maintain it running in unison with a variety of additional marketing platforms. If you’re ready to begin, contact us now for a free consultation.