Broken Links: How to Find and Fix Broken Links

Broken Links: How to Find and Fix Broken Links

When your website is not working smoothly or is loading slowly, have you ever thought about what could be the reason behind this? Most of the time, broken links are the reason for these errors. If you’ve ever faced this problem and you kept on ignoring it, you’re unintentionally leading your business to a big problem. Not only do the dead links offer your potential clients a bad visit experience, but they also ruin your professional image. 

Let’s understand the impact of broken links with this simple example. Suppose you’re reading a blog on a certain website and you click on a topic for another related blog, but it shows a broken 404 page. It will surely frustrate you, and you might not revisit it. A similar case can happen with your customers, and they might take or switch to services offered by your competitors. Keep reading this blog if you want to know how to fix broken links, why finding and fixing them is important, and more. 

Before learning how to find and fix broken links, it is most important to understand what broken links are. These are dead links on a website that don’t work anymore, and when someone clicks on them, they lead to an error page and don’t provide the required content. You might get results saying 404 Not Found or 500 Internal Server Error when clicking the dead link. These must be removed, as they reduce the website’s credibility among both customers and search engines. 

Now you’re aware that the broken or dead links are hyperlinks that no longer function properly. These bad links are categorized into three main types:

When users click on these links, they lead them to a different page or resource within the same website. The broken internal link doesn’t show the expected result, as the page linked to the link no longer exists or has been removed. Some common causes of these links are page deletion and incorrecBt URL entries. Not only do these make users unsatisfied, but they also do serious damage to the website’s ranking on search engine results. 

When users click on these links, they take them to a page or resource on another website. It doesn’t show the required result, as the target page on the other website no longer exists. Some main causes of these are the target page being moved or removed and the website going offline. The external broken links don’t cause any direct harm to a website’s ranking, but they can give users a bad experience. 


The third type of dead link is present on other websites and leads users to your website, but the users don’t get the required result, as the page on your site is broken. Any changes in website URL structure, page deletion, and other causes. These links lower the SEO value you might receive from the links present on other websites, impacting your website’s authority. 

Broken or dead links show error results to users. By understanding the main causes of these links, you can make sure they no longer affect your website’s performance in the future:

1. Page Deletion or Relocation

If you move a page from one location on the website to another location without updating the link, it becomes broken. You need to update the link if you’re moving the page linked to a new URL. 

2. Incorrect or Outdated URLs

Even minor errors in the URLs, including spelling mistakes, incorrect or missing elements, and others, can make a link broken. For example, if you need to enter a URL with https:// or you entered http://, then it will not show the desired results. 

3. Serve Issues

Another reason that causes broken links is the short or long-term downtime of the hosting server. 

4. Website Restructuring

If you’ve moved your website to a new platform or restructured it and haven’t updated the links, these lead to dead links. You must modify the URL structure of a website with proper redirection. 

5. External Website Issue

If the external website linked with a link on your website expires, the link will break. Similarly, if the linked external page is removed or moved, it will cause a broken link.

6. Other Causes

Sometimes browser extensions, using relative URLs incorrectly, and mixing relative URLs with absolute URLs, lead to broken links. Some web servers are case-sensitive, which means even a mistake in capitalization of URLs can cause this issue. 

Another thing you need to understand before learning how to find and fix broken links is why fixing the dead links is necessary. The following reasons will tell you the importance of fixing bad links:

1. Enhancing User Experience

Dead links lead users to errors like the 404 Page Not Found error that can seriously impact their experience. If you want to offer your users a smooth browsing experience, you need to maintain a website with no broken links. 

2. Boosting SEO Performance

To scan and index the website content, the website crawlers depend on links. However, the dead links make this difficult for the crawlers, leading to lower search engine rankings. By fixing these, you can improve your website’s credible image in the eyes of search engines.

3. Better Opportunities

Different types of broken links can make you lose profitable opportunities, as your clients might shift to a new service provider or stop trusting due to error results. Mostly, users consider websites with broken links to be untrustworthy, and they prefer not to use their services. 

Now that you know what broken or dead links are, their types, and why fixing them is important, the next thing to know is how to find them. 

1. Broken Link Checker: This is a popular tool used by SEO experts to check broken link issues on any website. It checks the overall websites and provides a report from the evaluation. The best part about this tool is that it offers both free and paid plans, but with the free plan, you can check a limited number of pages.

2. Google Search Console: This tool can greatly help you to improve your website’s overall performance. It will provide information about your website’s performance, including crawl or dead link issues. You can easily fix the deal link issues using this tool.

3. Ahrefs: This software can be used to find and fix broken links and is a popular choice, as it also provides reports regarding keyword research, rank tracking, and more. 

4. Dead Link Checker: It completely checks a website and emails you the report, helping you easily identify dead links and other issues. This tool offers three options for finding dead links, including auto check, site check, and multi check. 

After reviewing the reports provided by broken links finding tools, the next step is to fix them. Here are some simple ways to fix dead links:

  • If the report highlights any typo or spelling mistake in the error, you just need to edit the link and replace the broken link with a correct one.
  • If the page that you have linked is permanently unavailable, remove the link. You can do it by deleting the text or simply removing the link from the text.
  • If you can’t find that page you were linking to on your website, find a good replacement. For example, if you have linked a page on your website with an article regarding corporate tax laws in the UAE, but it is no longer accessible, you simply need to find another good article.
  • If you’ve linked two pages on your website, but the content on the linked page doesn’t exist, you simply need to create new content.
  • For broken backlinks, you can contact the webmaster of that particular site and inform them about the dead link issue.

Not only is having a website enough to maintain a strong online presence. You need to make sure your website is easy to navigate by removing any dead link issues. Broken links impact the SEO performance of your site, directly affecting its ranking in the search engine results and trust among users. You can easily find and fix dead links using many free and paid broken link checker tools.

Regularly checking dead links might add an extra burden to you or your employees. To fix this problem, you simply need to connect with Web Glaze Services, a trusted digital marketing company in Dubai, UAE. We have helped clients in securing a strong online presence, as we offer different packages and even offer customized services to meet their needs.

Our digital marketing service packages cover everything, from SEO and PPC. Connect with experts at Web Glaze Services, Dubai, and upgrade your business’s online presence. 

Also Read: A Step by Step Guide on How to Make Google Web Stories for Your Website

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