What is a broken link? The shortest answer to the question is that they are non-functioning internet addresses that cannot reach the targeted web page when clicked and usually return a 404 not found error from the server. If a user or search engine bot reaches a dead end while browsing the site, it directly damages the technical quality and reliability of the website.
What is a Broken Link and Why Does It Occur?
Broken links occur as a result of addresses being lost as websites are updated over time or technical changes are made. The address structure of a website may change or old content may be deleted during its publication life. In this case, people who visit old addresses encounter error pages. Regular analyzes are required to maintain the technical health of your site and not lose users. The 4 most common reasons for broken links on a website are:
- Changing the URL structure: Occurs when category or page addresses are moved to a new structure and old addresses are not linked to new versions.
- Permanent deletion of the page: It occurs when product pages that are no longer needed or out of stock are completely removed from publication without any redirection.
- Broken link to an external site: It is when the link you provide from your own site to another website becomes inoperative due to the other party closing the site or changing the address.
- Manual typos: Occur when content editors make spelling mistakes or enter incorrect protocol identifiers when adding links.
The Impact of Broken Links on SEO and User Experience
The negative impact of broken links on SEO and user experience is directly related to the fact that they reduce the crawling efficiency of search engines and cause visitors to immediately exit the site. Search engine bots spend a certain crawling budget when crawling a website. Bots that constantly encounter non-working pages think that the technical quality of your site is poor and may reduce their crawling frequency. Likewise, users who cannot find the information they are looking for quickly bounce back, increasing the bounce rate. This puts your position in search results at risk. In addition, the page authority transferred through internal links is also interrupted by broken links. This directly reduces the efficiency of on-site SEO efforts.
| SEO Criteria | Negative Effect | Solution Proposal |
|---|---|---|
| Crawl Budget | Bots waste time on non-working pages | Conducting regular technical audits and 301 redirects |
| User Experience | Visitors cannot find the information they are looking for and leave the site | Designing custom and leading 404 pages |
| Authority Transfer | Loss of link juice from internal links | Updating internal links with working URLs |
| Bounce Rate | Decreasing time on site and increasing bounce rate | Redirecting to new content from popular old pages |
What are the Broken Link Scanning Methods?
The broken link scanning process is based on scanning all source codes of the site using special software and web-based analysis tools. It is impossible to find faulty links one by one among thousands of pages on your site. It is essential to use professional tools to automate this process. For example, free of charge on our website broken link scanner Using the tool, you can detect all faulty links on your site within minutes. Once you enter your website's main address into this tool, the system scans all the pages and provides you with a complete list of broken links along with their status codes.
You can use the following checklist as a guide to carry out a regular technical audit:
- Start an automatic scan at least once every month and save the results.
- Check both internal links within the site and external links to external sites.
- Incoming messages from external sites that give 404 on your site blog backlinks List your sources.
- Make sure that redirects do not chain and reach the destination directly.
Steps to Find 404 Links on the Site
The steps to finding 404 links on the site start by examining Google Search Console data and running external crawling bots simultaneously. Taking a systematic approach when identifying error pages saves time. You can eliminate all technical glitches on your site by following the steps below:
- Log in to your Google Search Console account and click on the Page Count report from the left menu. Here you can see the index status of your site and any technical errors encountered.
- Download the list of URLs receiving not found (404) errors and check if these pages are still actively linking to your site. With this step you can prioritize critical errors.
- Using an external web crawler tool, map your entire site and detect resources returning 404 status codes. In this way, you catch all the errors in the live.
- Determine on which source page each broken link is located. Knowing the source pages allows you to update old links within the site.
- Prepare up-to-date alternatives for detected incorrect addresses. You can move on to the forwarding phase by preparing the links to your new content.
How to Redirect Broken Links?
Broken link redirection is the process of permanently redirecting an obsolete URL address to the new most relevant address via server-based commands or software plug-ins. Server-level redirects are the fastest and SEO-friendly solution. You can create a permanent 301 redirect by editing the .htaccess file on Apache servers. In this way, you notify search engines that the page has been moved permanently and transfer users directly to the working page. Here is an example of a correct redirect structure that you can add to your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
Redirect 301 /eski-urun-kategorisi/ https://www.onurozden.com.tr/yeni-urun-kategorisi/The function of each of the commands in the code blocks above is as follows:
The command in the first line activates the URL rewriting module on the Apache server.
The command in the second line permanently transfers all requests coming to the old category address to the new category address.
To verify that redirects are working without errors, check the information on our website. routing control You can use the tool. When you type the old address into this tool, you can test whether the redirect reaches the target directly with the 301 code.
Common Mistakes in Broken Link Management
The biggest mistake made in broken link management is the mass redirection of non-working pages to irrelevant pages without being analyzed. To make things easier, webmasters sometimes redirect all bad URLs to the home page. However, this is found misleading by search engines and causes a soft 404 error. Another mistake is to just redirect instead of updating the links within the site. This creates an unnecessary redirect chain on your site and increases server load.
For example, let's consider a shoe e-commerce site. This site has completely deleted the old red-sports-shoes category and redirected all links to this address to the home page. When Google bots crawl this page, they find the user transfer to the home page irrelevant and reset the ranking value in the search results. The correct fix is to 301 redirect this old address to the general category called sneakers or a similar new product.
Here are other common mistakes you should avoid when managing broken links and their solutions:
| Common Mistake | Correct Solution Method |
|---|---|
| Automatically redirect all broken links to the home page | Redirect each broken link to a working page in the closest category or similar topic. |
| Leaving old internal links on the site without updating | After redirecting, directly replace the old links in your site's template or text body with new addresses. |
| Ignoring broken links of static files such as images and CSS | Detect and update all non-working media addresses to avoid disrupting page speed and user experience. |
To maintain the technical health of your website and achieve lasting success in organic rankings, you should regularly clean up broken links and audit redirects. Websites that are free from technical errors and offer a fluent user experience always rank faster in search engines. To strengthen the technical infrastructure of your site and get professional support on-page SEO You can choose our solutions.
Do broken links directly reduce Google rankings?
Broken links disrupt the overall crawlability and user experience of the site, indirectly leading to ranking losses. If search bots waste time on non-working pages, it negatively affects the authority value of the site.
Is it right to redirect all broken links to the home page?
No, redirecting all non-working links to the home page will cause soft 404 errors. The best way is to redirect each broken address to an active page that is closest to its content.
How often should a site's broken links be crawled?
Depending on the frequency of updates on websites, it is recommended to regularly check for broken links at least once a month. On e-commerce sites that produce a lot of content, this scanning should be done every two weeks.
How do broken links affect crawl budget?
When search engine bots spend time on 404 URLs that don't work, they spend less time crawling the actual pages of the site. This extends the indexing time of your newly added content.