What is a Broken Link?
A broken link or dead link is understood to be a link that can longer be reach or the call of which displays an error message (“404 Not Found” or “410 Gone”).
A broken link is also a link-building tool in search engine optimization. Dead links should be avoid on your own website at all costs, so regular checks are essential. A Broken Link Checker can be helpful when tracking down dead links.
These reasons can cause a broken link:
- The server of one side is no longer accessible or has problems.
- A new URL: No 301 redirect was set up for the old URL!
- The URL is incorrect.
- The website’s domain is no longer up-to-date, or the domain has expired.
Impact of Broken Links
Why should you absolutely avoid broken links on your website?
Successful search engine optimization also includes constantly tracking down broken links on your own website. Sloppiness in links or in the URL leads to broken links, and these then have an impact on the ranking in the SERPs. Dead links must be correct quickly!
Google searches the Internet for relevant content based on the websites’ link structure. If a 404 error pages link is, Google assumes that the publishing side is out of date. The result: the crawler visits the page less often, and the ranking in the SERPs could change.
Avoiding Broken Links
- Why should you avoid broken links at all? Good user satisfaction is at risk
- The crawl budget is waste
- Link Juice is consumed: It is used for the dead link, not the website.
What can you do to avoid a Broken Link?
To prevent dead links, you should make sure that all URLs work after working on your own website. Linked content should be check at regular intervals. Even if the structure has been change, all links must be test! The time invested is worth it.
Importance of Broken Links for Link Building
What role do Broken Links Play in Link Building?
As already mentioned, finding broken links on other websites is a sub-area of link building in SEO, also known as broken link building. A new link replaces a dead link. If you have found a relevant page with a 404 with the help of a link checker, the SEO manager can write to the webmaster of a page and draw his attention to the faulty link.
Meanwhile, archive.org should check which content was linked earlier. Appropriate content should be created for your own website. The aim is to offer the webmaster the newly created content as an alternative. The creates an advantage for both sides: The broken link is removed, and the SEO manager receives a backlink. Of course, the linked page must be relevant to your own topic.
