Broken links are a big problem for website owners. The existence of broken links can risk the reputation of the website and drop the website's ranking in search engines.
In addition, broken links cause visitors to give up visiting the website. A survey states that 88% of visitors will not return to a website when they encounter a 404 page (error page).
Even though it's a big problem, it doesn't mean that broken links can't be solved. This article will help you fix broken links on your WordPress website quickly and easily.
Table of contents
1. Cause of Broken Link
2. 5 Ways to Check Broken Links and How to Overcome Broken Links
2. 1. Google Search Console2. 2. Screaming Frog2. 3. Check Broken Links Online2. 4. Broken Link Checker Plugin2. 5. Online SEO Audit Tools
3. Conclusion
Causes of Broken Links
A broken link is a term for links that are not accessible to search engines. There are several things that cause a link to become a broken link:
* Error in typing link or typo;
* Domain change;
* Web directory changes;
* 404-page storage by a cache;
* Changes to Domain Name Services (DNS) settings.
These factors need to be well kept in mind. That way you can anticipate and minimize the presence of broken links on your website.
5 Ways to Check Broken Links and How to Overcome Broken Links
No one will stop you from checking the content one by one to find broken links. But anyone would agree that this method takes time and energy. Especially if the website you have is old enough and has a lot of content. Therefore, here are five ways to check for broken links and how to deal with broken links:
1. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that can monitor the performance of your website in Google search results. Well, one of the Google Search Console features is called Crawl Errors
This Crawl Errors will give you a report of any pages that have broken links in them. Very interesting, right?
To use Crawl Error, your website must have added your website to Google Search Console first.
1. After the website is entered, you click Settings. Then, OPEN REPORT on the Crawling menu.
2. Click Not Found (404) on By response.
3. You will find a list of Broken Links on your website as shown below:
2. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is an SEO audit application that you can install on your computer. This application can be installed on Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu devices. Here's how to check for broken links using Screaming Frog:
1. Download and install Screaming Frog from the official website here.
2. Enter your website URL in the box and click Start to start the scan.
3. After the scan is complete, click the Response Code tab, then click Client Error (4xx) on the right. You can also find out the link to each broken link by clicking Inlinks at the bottom.
3. Check Broken Links Online
In addition to the application, you can also check for broken links for free online. However, this method is suitable if your website is small and doesn't have many pages. How to?
All you have to do is visit the BrokenLinkCheck.com website. Then, enter your website URL in the box provided and click Find broken links. Enter the captcha code if prompted. Then, wait a few moments and the results of the broken link scan will be displayed.
4. Broken Link Checker Plugin
Among the many broken link solutions, we recommend you use the Broken Link Checker plugin. This plugin is free, easy to use, and will certainly make your job easier in dealing with broken links.
For a free plugin, Broken Link Checker provides so many settings options. There are five settings tabs available. These five tabs make it easier for you to identify broken links on various website components. We'll go over these five parts of the setup further:
General is where you set how often the plugin checks for links on the website. By default this plugin checks for links every 72 hours.
In addition, you can also activate notifications every time a broken link is identified.
The Look For Links In tab lets you select website elements whose links need to be checked. By default, the plugin will only check the comments section, pages, and posts. However, you can add more sections by checking the available options.
Not only content that has been published (published) can be checked. This plugin is able to check for broken links in various statuses such as scheduled, draft, pending, private, and spam.
This plugin also provides a selection of Protocols & APIs to check for broken links in websites.
In the Advanced section, you set more specific settings about broken links. For example, you can consider a link to be a broken link if it hasn't been open for more than 30 seconds.
You can set how long the plugin monitors the links and the categorization of the checked links.
After setting the above settings, you can see the broken links the plugin has found. In the example above, Broken Link Checker managed to find six broken links, all of which came from the comments column.
This means broken links are not only the result of the website owner's negligence or technical problems. Sometimes broken links are caused by comments left by visitors to your website. This is why a plugin like Broken Link Checker is very effective for checking and finding broken links.
Also read: Error 404 Not Found and Other Error Messages You Should Know
To fix broken links, there are two actions that can be taken. First, by changing the URL. This option is possible if you know the correct page or content link.
Second, namely by unlinking or removing the link and making it just plain text. This second method is good if you don't know the correct link. This second method is what I will choose to fix broken links in the comments column.
also read : How to make Blogspot get high rank
5. Online SEO Audit Tools
The last way to check for broken links that you can try is to use SEO audit tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush. Both provide sophisticated SEO audit tools and are able to scan your website if there are broken links.
Conclusion
Yes! That's all you need to do to fix broken links. Very easy isn't it?
Now, there are no more stories of losing visitors or dropping SEO rankings because of broken links.
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