You never know what mood your reader is going to be in when they land on your website. 

Which is why website optimisation is so important! 

You want the experience to be seamless, or you risk losing their attention and gaining a permanent black mark against your name in their eyes. 

There are many boxes to tick when it comes to optimising your website. 

today we’re going to chat about just one: how to find and fix broken links. 

Ever clicked on a link you were quite interested in only to be redirected to an error page? 

That’s what we’re trying to avoid here. 

This single little error can cause someone to leave your page, never to return… 

And that’s a potential customer lost. 

Here’s everything you need to know about identifying and fixing these avoidable issues. 

What Exactly Are Broken Links? 

A broken link is a link on your web page that leads to an error page. 

Note that this is a different thing to a website that’s down, or has restrictions on it for traffic from certain countries. 

These links are still valid and not broken, but just aren’t accessible for certain people or at a specific time. 

Both internal and external links can be broken. They can present in multiple ways, including: 

• 404 Page Not Found 
• Timeout 
• 400 Bad Request 

How Do Broken Links Happen? 

Links can break for a variety of reasons. 

One of the most common is that the original page no longer exists. 

• Website has shut down 
• Page has been deleted 
• The offer was for a  limited time 

Other times, the page has simply been moved or the URL has been changed during a website content audit, so the link doesn’t direct to the right place anymore. 

• Old Link: https://yourwebsite.com/about/the-ceo 
• New Link: https://yourwebsite.com/about/meet-the-team/the-ceo 

OR: 

• Old Link: https://yourwebsite.com/about 
• New Link: https://yourwebsite.com/about-us 

Another common mistake is a spelling error in the URL. 

This can happen accidentally during copying the link and pasting it into your page. 

• Correct link: https://yourwebsite.com/about 
• Misspelt link: https://youwebsite.com/about 

On rare occasions, there are broken Javascript, CSS, or HTML elements on the page. 

Another thing that happens on occasion is that you accidentally include an extra character in your link. 

• Correct link: (https://yourwebsite.com/about) 
• Misspelt link: (https://youwebsite.com/about) 

See the difference? 

It’s rare, because most of the time, if you type out the full URL it automatically becomes a link. 

But it can happen! 

Why Do You Need to Fix Them? 

Broken links don’t have a hugely detrimental effect on your site’s SEO, but Google does monitor dead links and use them to determine the quality of your site. 

Internal links are also an important factor in SEO, and broken links can hamper that. 

But as long as you’re constantly checking and fixing them, you shouldn’t have any noticeable SEO problems. 

The bigger problem, though, is that broken links diminish your users’ experience with your site. 

Not all users will be understanding when they come across a dead link, and if they can’t access the information they need, they’ll move on. 

Fix broken links to keep your readers on your page and reduce your bounce rate! 

How to Find Your Broken Links 

Just a quick Google Search will bring up a variety of tools to check our site for broken links. 

• Ahrefs Broken Link Checker 
• Dead Link Checker 
• SiteChecker 
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider 
• SEOptimer DIY SEO 
• Google Search Console 
• Google Analytics 

Some are free and some are paid. 

But it’s worth investing in a link checker tool to keep your website up-to-date and optimised. 

Depending on how big your website is, you can choose between a tool that goes one page at a time or one that checks your entire site. 

How to Fix Your Broken Links 

Once you’ve identified them, your next job is to fix them. 

You know your site best, so it shouldn’t take you long to fix things. 

Internal Links 

There are a few ways to fix broken internal links. 

• Redirect: Pages that have been moved 
• Update: URLs with typos or changes 
• Remove: Links to nonexistent pages 

External Links 

You have three options when it comes to fixing broken external links: 

• Replace them with links from a different website 
• Reach out to the website owner and ask about the page 
• Remove the link completely 

Replacing them with a different link is the quickest option. 

For any given topic, there are many choices to link to. 

Reaching out to the website owner is a good idea as it can build a bit of rapport. 

It makes them feel like their content is valuable enough to you to not just be replaced. 

And they’ll most likely appreciate a reach-out, especially if they haven’t realised that a page is broken for some reason. 

But it can take time to get a response, and in some cases you may not hear back. 

You can always remove the link completely, but you put it there for a reason in the first place! 

Dealing With Broken Backlinks 

Dead internal links are not the only possible issue when you change stuff up on your site. 

Broken backlinks are a whole different monster. 

These are links on other people’s sites that redirect back to yours. 

Except if they’re broken, they just land up on an error page instead of your site. 

This might not be an issue if your site is small and you don’t get backlinks. 

But it can have a negative impact on your traffic, especially if the site linking to you has a big audience. 

Why Do Broken Backlinks Happen? 

• You’ve deleted or moved a page that someone else has linked to 
• They’ve made a typo when they added your link 

How To Fix Broken Backlinks 

Most of the tools mentioned above can help you to find broken backlinks as well as internal and external links. 

Once you’ve found them, you need to figure out why they’re broken before you can fix them. 

Error On Their Part 

If the page they’re trying to link to is still up and running, chances are they’ve made a spelling error in their link. 

Your best bet is to reach out to the site owner and mention it. 

You can send them the correct URL address to replace it with. 

Fixing it helps their SEO and website ranking as well, so they’ll most likely appreciate it. 

Error On Your Part 

If the problem is occurring because you’ve changed or moved a page, then it’s up to you to fix it. 

You have a few options here: 

• 301-Redirects: This redirects the broken link to another page on your site. Make sure it’s similar enough in topic to the old one that it remains in context. 
• Create New Content: If you have the time and the inclination, you can create a new page under the old URL. 
• Send the Site Owner a New Link: If you have a different link you want to replace it with, ask the site owner to replace it for you. This helps both them and you! 

404 Pages 

It’s always a good idea to create an appealing 404 page for your site just in case someone clicks on a broken backlink. 

Your 404 page should be personalised for your site, creative, and include a link to your home page. 

That increases the chances of the reader staying on your site rather than just bouncing. 

Final Thoughts 

It’s not difficult to fix broken links on your site. 

Dealing with broken backlinks can be a little more tricky, but it’s also quite doable. 

The biggest problem with both is that they’re time-consuming. 

Finding the links is the easy part—fixing them is the hard part. 

You can find a VA to do the dirty work for you, or you can take the time to fix a few every day. 

It may take you weeks to get them all fixed, but I can promise it’s worth every minute to avoid losing traffic and annoying readers!