{SEO} As Strong As Your Weakest Link. How to Fix Your Broken Links

Written by Danielle
November 16th, 2011

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Links (external and internal) are extremely important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and your overall Internet Marketing. It helps get your website found and allows your visitors to go to and navigate through your site.

However, every now and then, a broken link will appear. This can affect your SEO and frustrate your visitors. Here’s how you can track them down:

1. Go to your Google Webmaster Tools. You must have an account open with them.
2. Click ‘Diagnostics’ on the left-side panel
3. Go to ‘Crawl Errors’
4. Under the ‘Web’ tab, you will see your ‘Not Found’ errors. These are your broken links.

You will find broken links (404-errors) coming from your own site as well as any external links to your site. You can then download this chart to get cracking on fixing these broken links.

There are several ways you can correct broken links.

First, if you are quick enough, you can fix the link yourself: go to where the link is broken/mistyped and re-enter it. If you can’t change the link (the page does not exist anymore or the link has already been distributed far and wide), you can set a 301 permanent redirect. This basically means your old, broken link will redirect visitors to the correct URL. The good thing about this is that all your link juice will get transferred to your new URL!

Another option is to customize your Not Found error page. So, instead of visitors landing on a generic 404-error page, you can have a custom message, apology, and provide other options (many companies have become very creative with this). You won’t get any SEO link credit here, but you can help reduce bounce rate.

Custom 404 Page

General 404 Page

For any website owner or online marketing strategist, it’s important to devote some time into keeping track of your links. Don’t let your visitors land on a dead page!

Need help finding your broken links or turning your 404s to 301s? Contact us to get your site in tiptop shape.

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