Have you seen one of these before, a 404 error page? They suck. You think you found what you were looking for and you get one of these which is very disappointing.
That is a broken link. A broken link is quite simply a link on a website that no longer works. A broken link can be caused by a few different reasons such as recent updates, a change of URL or some sort of server error.
Regardless of the reason, a broken link can be quite damaging when it comes to user experience and your overall SEO efforts. They need to be identified and fixed as soon as possible. Therefore the website admin should be constantly looking for the broken link as part of a website maintenance plan to ensure all website URLs are in working condition.
How to find them?
Google Analytics is a perfect free tool to start. It is well known for tracking website overall performance and finding broken links. In the google analytics dashboard, you can set your evaluation period and check the performance of all the links on your website under your site map. In the contents section, you can look for pages that are showing up as 404 errors. Most broken and none existence pages will show up as 404 error pages which makes them easy to identify and fix.
How to fix them?
Fixing is the easy part. You can fix a broken link by finding the reason behind the issue. In nine out of ten cases, a broken link is caused by missing content which needs to be activated or replaced. Sometimes your content management software latest update cause unintentional setting changes which eventually leads to link structure updates that can affect some of your posts or articles. If you are a WordPress user you can easily log in to your WordPress admin, find the page or the post and edit the URL using your build in customiser.
In nutshell, a broken link is a simple problem that can be fixed with a good maintenance plan. If you are getting too many continuous issues over time you may want to look at your hosting or server setting as repetitive 404 errors could source from more underlying issues.
For assistance, you can use the form below to contact Brissy’s support team to obtain a more permanent solution.
