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Internal linking is one of the most important elements that affect the SEO process of a website, as well as how our website will be perceived by an Internet user or potential customer. Broken Links – also known as Broken Links – – are nothing more than URLs with incorrectly functioning pages. Using a broken link, which is inside the structure of the page, the user, may come across the so-called: „dead link”, which in the vast majority of cases will present a 404 error or possibly another HTTP error. This type of situation can lead to a potential customer losing trust in our site and leaving it without converting and, worse, having a negative experience in mind, not returning to our website.
The occurrence, or appearance, of Broken Links on a website should be considered a natural turn of events that may result from changes to our site. Some product we linked to in a blog post, for example, has been removed from the store’s offer, or a service we used to offer has become part of some package, so the link to it has changed. In such a case, it is useful to know how to find the aforementioned internal linking errors.
How to find broken links on a website?
Having a site that consists of a few or a dozen subpages – its site is not very extensive – seems easy. The proverbial stairs begin when the site has more subpages. It is then worth taking advantage of the options that various free or paid tools offer us. Quite possibly, they are already plugged into your site. So let’s take full advantage of them.
Google Search Console as a free internal linking analysis tool
Google Search Console is an analytical tool that allows us to analyze the health of a website, including in the area of indexing errors. Without bouncing off the edge too much, however, let’s focus on broken links.
By going to the Index > Status tab, we can see pages returning an error and excluded URLs from indexing. When we go to the details, we can find out what specific problems the search engine robots encountered and by clicking on a specific item we will see the specific URLs we are looking for. With Google Search Console, we will find out what broken links are on our site, and then we can move on to action.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider – search for broken links
This tool may already be within the reach of every person. Admittedly, there is a paid version, but in the case of searching for broken links of a medium-sized site, the purchase and access to all options will not be necessary.
At the top of the application window there is a bar where you should enter the URL of your site. When you click the „Start” button, the „crawl” process will begin, and the middle area of the application will slowly start filling up with your site addresses. A pie chart will appear on the bottom right. Above the diagram is an overview of the status codes. By clicking on “Customer error (4xx)” in the “Response codes” section, you can filter broken links. In the lower left part of the application window you will find the “Inlinks” tab. There you will find links to 404 pages and additional information.
The whole process of finding broken links can also be followed in the video:
Summary
There are even more tools, CMS plugins or specially dedicated services to find broken links. As for WordPress plugins, it’s worth using them if the option related to finding broken links is an option and not the essence of the whole plugin. Installing one just for this purpose can slow down your site or make it easier to hack. It is a good idea then to choose one of the SEO support plugins that has an option related to broken links in its offer.
And if you want us to take a technical look at your site, not just in the area of broken links in internal linking, let us know by writing to this address: hello@upmore.pl
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