Broken internal links can significantly damage your site’s SEO health by confusing your site visitors, increasing bounce rates, & preventing seamless link equity distribution across it. However, if you identify them on time and fix them following the right ways, it will automatically boost user engagement on your site, resulting in increased search engine rankings and niche authority. So, let’s discuss the importance of identifying and fixing the broken internal links, the tools you should consider for doing this, best practices, as well as some common mistakes that you must avoid.
Broken links are like those roads that take you to dead ends!
They don’t just frustrate your site visitors, but also make them leave your website almost instantly.
But don’t worry!
There are ways to find & fix them.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to another FastLinky blog, where we’ll be discussing broken links, their deadly impacts on your site’s SEO health, key reasons for ending up with broken links, ways to fix them, and the top 6 tools that we use to identify and fix broken links on our clients’ websites.
Stay hooked till the end to learn about all these.
This one is going to be really informative, we promise.
The Reality of Broken Links…
First things first!
Most of the site owners are reluctant to even believe that their sites may contain broken links.
However, according to recent studies, the prevalence of broken links across the web has emerged as a burning concern for most of the website owners and users.
Research and surveys confirm that around 25% of webpages launched in 2013 to 2014 are found to be completely inaccessible by 2023, primarily due to the presence of broken links.
…But, That’s Not All!
The real shocking facts are still awaiting…
According to the most recent studies and surveys, 42+% of modern websites have broken links.
To be specific, 23% of news webpages, 21% of government webpages, and 54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one broken link.
When around 35.2% of the 88K most-visited site homepages contain at least one broken link, it goes without saying that most of the sites today might also have a large number of broken links.
The Deadly Impacts of Broken Internal Links on Websites
The consequences of not fixing these broken links are far-fetched.
Failing to identify them at the right time and fixing them will lead to:
✔️Devastating user experience
✔️Higher bounce rates
✔️Compromised brand trust
✔️Reduced engagement on the site
✔️Delayed crawlability/indexing
✔️Lost link authority
Broken links either guide your visitors to “404 Page Not Found”, “404 Bad Request”, “502 Bad Gateway”, “403 Forbidden”, “410 Gone”, or the link request gets timed out during the check.
These seemingly minor issues convey negative signals to the search engine, resulting in a major drop in the online rankings & poor web visibility.
Worst of all, if you own an e-commerce website, broken links to your payment/product pages will eventually lead to abandoned shopping carts, loss of sales, and wasted marketing spend.
So, fixing them is not only crucial for your site’s SEO health, but also undeniable.
But before fixing them, it’s very important to understand the concept of broken links in detail.
What Are Broken Links?
Broken links, also known as dead links, are basically the existing hyperlinks on your website that guide your site visitors to non-existent, moved, or deleted webpages.
Since these broken links do not guide your visitors to the intended destination, they are often referred to as link rots, dangling links, and even 404 errors.
There might be multiple reasons behind the broken links, and we’ll discuss all of them one by one. However, they significantly degrade the user experience, affect site credibility, and prevent the search engine from crawling/indexing your webpages, leading to poor search visibility of your website.
But, before we talk about the best fixes, let’s discuss the types of broken links first.
Types of Broken Links
Depending on the link resources and the destination, we can categorize the broken links into three types.
1️⃣Broken Internal Links point to non-existent pages within your own website.
2️⃣Broken external links guide your users from your website to another site that no longer exists
3️⃣Broken backlinks to your site direct the visitors on another site to one of your webpages that shows “404 Not Found”
However, in today’s blog, we’ll be discussing broken internal links only. So, let’s get deeper into the potential causes & fixes of these broken internal links.
The Real Causes Behind Broken Links
See, identifying the broken links on your site is crucial to maintaining its SEO & internal link profile health.
But, since we intend to talk about broken internal links only, we’ll discuss the possible reasons that might be the real causes behind the existing internal broken links on your website.
You Changed The URL of Your Webpage
When you modify the URL to one of your webpages without updating the internal links or implementing relevant redirects, you end up with a broken link to that specific webpage from other pages within your own domain.
You Entered The Incorrect URL During Link Creation
A basic typo or a simple human mistake at the time of link creation to one of your webpages might lead to a broken destination. Often ignored, this basic error is one of the most common causes of ending up with a broken link on your site.
The Page You Linked to Was Removed
Do you remember deleting a few webpages, product pages, or a part of your website for regular maintenance? Well, it might also be one of the prime reasons for broken internal links.
Links to Specific Content Were Removed/Moved Elsewhere
If you have accidentally or intentionally deleted or removed a specific content of one of your webpages that you have internally linked to the most authoritative pages/other sections/webpage within your domain, it might result in a broken link.
You Updated Your Site’s URL Structure
If you have recently updated your site’s URL structure (e.g., from https://abc.com to https://def.com), it might be one of the primary reasons for broken links on your site.
You Didn’t Redirect Old URLs
If you fail to set up a 301 redirect when moving or renaming your webpages, it might result in broken links.
Plugin Malfunctions/Broken Elements within A Page
Plugins on your site usually enhance its functionalities & capabilities without modifying its core code. However, if they fail to update or conflict with other elements on your site, they start disrupting the internal link performance on your site, resulting in broken internal links.
Well, if you’re now wondering how fixing these internal links on your website will improve its SEO health, let’s understand first how the search engine observes them.
Importance of Fixing Broken Internal Links: Google’s Perspective
The broken links on your website act as indicators of poor site maintenance to the search engine. Google considers websites with a large volume of broken links as unreliable, untrustworthy, & poor authority and credibility score.
This not only results in poor user experience on your website, but also leads to poor search engine visibility. That is why identifying the broken links and updating/fixing them is non-negotiable for your site’s improved SEO health.
Wondering how to identify the broken internal links on your site?
Let’s discuss them below👇
Different Ways to Find Broken Internal Links on Your Site?
Dead/broken links interrupt your visitors’ site navigation experience, and result in wasted crawl budget & damaged site credibility. However, identifying them manually may not be a viable option.
Well, there are multiple ways to identify broken internal links on your website. Implementing different methods for identifying these broken links will help you ensure a comprehensive optimization of your site’s internal link profile, tap into each and every internal link-building opportunity, and fix every sort of internal link issue.
Below are Some of The Popular Methods to Identify Broken Links 👇
Manual Checking
Definitely not something we recommend, manual checking involves going through your webpages one by one and identifying the broken internal links by clicking on each of them.
However, technically, individual site owners can’t perform an internal link profile audit manually as this is a time-intensive process.
Well, don’t worry, there are better ways to look for them.
Online Broken Internal Links Checkers
Online broken internal link checkers are cloud-based/desktop-based tools, or WordPress plugins that automatically crawl your site and identify the broken links and other link/server issues (e.g., 404/401 errors, 503 Bad Gateways) by scanning the HTML/CSS codes.
These tools provide you with detailed reports on the internal link metrics, source page, broken URLs, anchor texts, and status codes for quick location & identification of the broken links.
Some advanced AI-powered tools also suggest relevant internal links for improved site’s SEO (we’ve also talked about 6 online broken internal links checkers we’ve personally used, later in this blog.)
SEO Audit Tools
Some SEO audit tools, for example, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Sitebulb, SEMRush, Ahrefs, etc., are designed to scan your site’s structure and identify broken links, perfect for a quick internal link profile audit and faster optimization.
Browser Extensions
Check My Links, Broken Link Checker, and Link Checker are some of the most popular browser extensions that scan your webpages to look for 404 link errors, broken URLs, 500 link errors, and even internal server issues.
Most of these browser extensions are designed to work seamlessly on all browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, etc. & effectively analyze not only internal links, but also the external links on your site.
All you need to do is add one of these extensions to your browser and run it. Automatically, these browser extensions will audit your site’s webpages, analyze the content, and highlight the broken ones in red & the valid links in green. Most of the browser extensions will also provide you with the status codes for fixing them as soon as possible.
Google Search Console
This free service provided by Google not only helps you monitor or improve your site’s online presence, but also assists you in measuring search traffic, tracking site performance, and even analyzing your site’s internal link structure.
Google Search Console efficiently scans your site’s content, identifies the broken links on your website, & reports to you about the crawl errors.
Simply log in to your Google Search Console account, click on “Indexing” in your left-side navigation menus, and select “Pages.” Next, scroll down to the “Why pages aren’t indexed” section and click on “Not Found (404)” error. Here you’ll find a list displaying all the URLs to 404 error pages or specific webpages that Google failed to crawl.
CMS Plugins
CMS plugins such as Broken Link Checker or AIOSEO are software add-ons that seamlessly integrate into your Content Management System & identify the broken links present on your site.
These plugins automatically crawl your site/webpages/content/comments, detect the broken links, missing/broken images, and potential link/server issues, & provide you with detailed reports on them for quick repairs.
Most of these CMS automated tools send you an email notification once they detect a broken link. Also, the dashboard lists all broken links that exist on your site, along with the link sources, anchor texts, and target URLs.
Server Log Files
These server log files are basically Error and Access logs that record every request made to your website and allow the administrator to identify the failed requests, including 404 errors.
They record HTTP status codes for every server request made by your site visitors and the search engine bots, and that’s how these server log files provide you with real-time reports on the pages that display error codes, helping you to identify broken links.
Simply start by getting access to your server logs, search for 404 status codes, filter the results, analyze the pages linking to the 404 URLs, and there you go!
Google Analytics 4
This next-generation privacy-centric analytics platform, launched by Google itself, tracks user visits to all the pages displaying “404 Page Not Found”.
So, if you analyze the GA4 reports, you will find the broken page URLs and the webpages containing the broken links. Also, this will let you know the exact number of visitors who visited these webpages via the broken links present on your site.
So, now you know how you can look for the broken links existing on your website. However, it’s also important to know that the faster you identify them, the better it will be for your site’s SEO health because the faster you’ll be able to fix them.
Let’s know why👇
Why Find Broken Internal Links Faster for Improved SEO?
Broken links are often overlooked.
However, finding & fixing them faster will improve your site’s online visibility & web performance almost immediately. No broken links on your site means no dead ends for the visitors, better user experience, seamless link authority distribution across the website, and significantly reduced bounce rates.
However, among the ways we discussed right above, we recommend using the broken internal link checkers for faster identification of the broken links.
Here’s why👇
Broken Internal Links Checkers Vs. Others: What Finds Broken Links Better?
Internal broken link checkers are always our first preference when it comes to identifying broken links. They are fully reliable, automated, and highly efficient in scanning your site’s internal link structure.
The best part is that these tools are designed for performing minute site audits and link profile optimization rather than relying on user behavior and search engine latency to track the broken links.
Here is A Basic Comparison
➡️Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 don’t crawl your site’s webpages at regular intervals and report broken links only encountered by the Google bot.
Moreover, they rely on users’ behavior and can track those broken links only if your visitors have clicked on them. That means all those broken links that are unclicked will remain hidden.
➡️The browser extensions scan only your current webpage. However, broken internal link checkers crawl your entire website and scan the hidden pages as well, promising a comprehensive audit of your site’s internal link structure.
➡️One of the most annoying things about CMS plugins is that they slow down your site’s loading speed significantly. Also, some of the CMS plugins come with security vulnerabilities that might compromise your site’s privacy concerns.
Broken internal link checkers, on the other hand, are dedicated tools that run externally without any risk of negatively affecting your site’s loading speed and privacy breach.
➡️The issue with server log files and even a manual internal link structure audit is that they are incredibly time-consuming, taking almost ages to scan your site’s content and identify the new linking opportunities.
With automated broken internal link checkers, you can schedule a detailed site scan and get a comprehensive report on the internal link metrics.
As you can see, broken internal link checkers outperform all the other methods of identifying the broken links on your site.
Besides identifying broken links, exact URLs, anchor texts, and the exact location of the broken links, these tools also identify server errors & redirects by inspecting your webpages minutely, which most of the site auditing tools might overlook.
But, hang on!
Are you wondering what these broken internal link checkers are?
Let’s find out👇
What Are Broken Internal Link Checker Tools?
These are automated software, plugins, extensions, and tools designed for scanning websites to identify link and server errors. These broken internal link checkers highlight the links that guide your site visitors to specific webpages that show “404 Page Not Found.”
So, Why Use Broken Internal Link Checkers to Fix Bad Internal Linking?
These tools are faster, more effective, and more accurate.
By using these broken internal link checkers, you can automatically detect all the potential internal links and server errors.
This will result in:
✅Improved user experience
✅A massive boost in your site’s SEO rankings
✅Seamless link authority distribution across your site
✅Zero wasted resources
✅Optimum maintenance of your site’s link structure & content
✅Optimization of your site’s internal link profile
In short, broken internal link checkers will help you fix your site’s internal link structure effectively and faster, which will lead to reduced user frustration, efficient site crawling, and improved site SEO.
So, it is quite evident that using broken internal link checkers will help you identify the broken internal links and fix them at the right time.
However, selecting the right tools is also highly important.
Let’s discuss how to select the right broken internal link checker👇
Tips to Select The Best Broken Internal Link Checkers
We have been working with 750+ global businesses for the past 7+ years, and throughout these years, we’ve used a lot of broken internal link checker tools to identify and fix the broken internal links on our clients’ websites.
With each passing year, we have noticed new things, observed them, & learnt from them.
Below, we’ve listed the essential features that you should look for when selecting the best internal broken link checker tool:
✅It should crawl your entire site
✅The tool should identify the source location of the broken link
✅Should provide you with real-time alerts for broken link detection
✅Should integrate with your CMS seamlessly
✅Advanced functionality features for data export
Most importantly, the tool should not burn a hole in your pocket. If you find a free service that offers those above-mentioned services, go for it.
However, most of the free broken internal links checker tools offer a very basic service that may scan your site’s content and internal link structure, but wouldn’t provide you with detailed link metric reports and fully automated link insertion services.
So, if you want to perform a regular site audit, identify and fix the broken internal links in real-time, and want real-time link suggestions, look for automated or semi-automated broken internal link checkers.
Top 6 Broken Internal Link Checkers: Our Experts’ Recommendations
Though you know what exactly to look for when selecting the right tool for broken internal link identification, let’s make it easier for you!
Here we’ll talk about 6 tools that our link-building experts have personally used in the past 7+ years and absolutely loved using. The listed tools and the functionality features that we’ll discuss below are based on our personal observations and experiences.
We have used all of them and watched our clients’ sites’ SEO score soar like never before. So, go through it and decide on which one you want to use for your specific needs.
1️⃣Ahrefs Internal Broken Links
The number one on our list is definitely Ahrefs. Renowned as one of the highly reliable website audit tools, this one is also a highly popular Ahrefs broken internal links checker tool.
Highlights & Features
✅Comprehensive site scanning
✅Faster internal link metric updates
✅Real-time reporting on broken links
✅Scheduled site & internal link structure scan
✅Data export in just 2 clicks
| Pros | Cons |
| Highly accurate | Pricing plans might be a bit expensive |
| Reliable | Limited features with the basic free plan |
| Faster results | Might not be beneficial for small-scale businesses |
| Beginner-friendly interface | — |
This particular broken internal link checker is a top-tier tool for the purpose of broken internal link identification due to its accurate link index feature.
So, if you are an SEO professional, content marketer, link-building professional, and large-scale e-commerce site manager, go for this.
2️⃣SEMRush
To get access to the advanced link structure audit and internal link suggestion features, you need to select one of these pricing plans, namely Pro, Guru, & Business, which might be a bit expensive for small-scale site owners.
Also, to get detailed reports on lead generation or Click-Through Rates, you need to buy their add-on services, often leading to exceeding the crawl budget.
However, SEMRush is currently offering 17% discount on all of its pricing plans if you purchase their annual subscriptions.
So, if you are an SEO professional/content marketer, or run a full-fledged SEO agency, or you have an in-house team of site developers/managers, you can definitely rely on this tool.
3️⃣Screaming Frog SEO SpiderThis highly reliable site auditing tool is also a master tool for identifying broken internal and external links on your site and redirect chains.
Let’s look into the distinguishing features👇
Highlights & Features
✅Detects internal 404 broken link errors
✅Reports to you about the source page, anchor text, & broken URL
✅Also, identifies orphan pages on your site
✅Faster and real-time reports on link metrics
✅An efficient browser extension
| Pros | Cons |
| Identifies other link structural & SEO issues | The free plan does not offer advanced features |
| Provides you with actionable insights into fixing the internal link errors | Higher pricing plans starting at $139.95 per month |
| Effectively monitors your site’s internal link profile health | Complex user interface |
| Ensures overall improvement of your site’s link structure and SEO health | Might slow down large-scale and content-heavy sites |
| Offers a free service for broken internal link detection | Requires significant server resources for optimum performance |
The third on our list is a premium, desktop-based site crawler tool that identifies broken links, redirect chains, and existing link and server errors on your site.
Highlights & Features
✅Detects broken internal links (404s) instantly
✅Identifies server errors (500s)
✅Identifies the pages containing broken links
✅Shows the source URLs of the broken links
✅Integrates seamlessly with CSV, Excel, & Google Sheets for data export
✅Uses the “Response Codes” tab for filtering 404 error codes
| Pros | Cons |
| Helps you visualize your site’s internal linking structure | The user interface might not be suitable for beginners |
| Also, identifies orphan pages | Crawling large-scale sites requires significant processing/RAM power |
| Offers a free version that lets you crawl 500 URLs per site | Cannot be run in the cloud |
| The paid version offers unlimited crawling | It’s a desktop-only tool |
| Works on JavaScript sites | Requires installation |
| Highly accurate | — |
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is one of the best internal link checkers we have used for link identification. Also, the paid plan comes at a fairly affordable rate (£199 per year).
It’s fast, detects link issues that other site crawling tools might miss, and can even change the user-agent to mimic Googlebot to provide you with detailed reports on broken link URLs, status codes, anchor texts, & other link issues.
So, we recommend using this tool if you are an SEO professional, run an agency, a professional content marketer, webmasters, developers, or an e-commerce site owner. The tool will help you ensure and maintain an improved user experience on your site by fixing its entire internal link structure.
4️⃣Dr. Link Check
This is a web-based tool that scans your site and identifies the broken links, erroneous URLs, and missing images.
Let’s check out the unique features that the tool offers👇
Highlights & Features
✅Ensures comprehensive site scanning
✅Identifies broken links/images, link sources, & HTTP errors
✅Scheduled scanning features (daily, weekly, & monthly)
✅Provides you with email reports listing the internal link metrics
✅Automated internal link structure audit
✅You can exclude specific site portions, URLs, & file types from scanning
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy to use | Might not be suitable for all servers |
| Faster internal link structure scanning | The free version doesn’t offer unlimited site crawl |
| Tracks accurate link locations | It might slow down your site’s loading speed sometimes |
| Offers a free version that crawls up to 1500 links | — |
| 3 affordable monthly & yearly pricing plans: Standard, Professional, & Premium | — |
| Helps you improve your site’s overall SEO health | — |
If you just want to perform a basic audit for 2 websites, and you are alright with the identification of the broken links only without detailed link metrics or source codes, you can sign up for its free “Lite” plan.
However, to access advanced features and data reports, you need to sign up for one of the paid plans. The “Standard” plan, priced at $13/month, will let you scan up to 5 websites and comes with scheduled checks and SSL certificate checks. But it does not let you export the data to CSV/PDF.
To do so, you need to sign up for advanced paid plans such as “Professional” or “Premium”, priced at $49 and $159 per month, respectively, scanning up to 50,000 and 200,000 links.
So, if you are a site owner/blogger/SEO specialist or run professional SEO agencies/site development companies, opt for either the “Professional” or “Premium” plan.
5️⃣Xenu’s Link Sleuth
This is a completely free & lightweight Windows desktop application, designed for performing website audits, crawling your site’s internal link structure, and identifying internal/external links, images, broken links, and site structural issues.
Highlights & Features
✅Identifies 404s, 500s, & other internal link/server issues
✅Detects HTTP/HTTPS links, images, scripts, stylesheets, frames
✅Generates a detailed list of broken links, redirects, & link sources
✅Helps you identify new internal linking opportunities
✅Lets you export detailed internal link metrics in real-time
| Pros | Cons |
| Completely free service | It’s a Windows-only tool |
| Scans your site faster | Not compatible with Mac/Linux |
| Provides you with detailed link reports | The User Interface might seem outdated to a few users |
| Does not slow down your site’s loading speed | Requires installation |
| Maps your site structure | — |
You can simply visit their official website and click on “Free Download” to download the tool for absolutely free. Next, simply click on “Install” and follow the next steps as displayed on your screen.
Our link-building experts recommend using this tool if you are an SEO professional, webmaster, site developer, e-commerce site owner, or content strategist for managing your site’s internal link structure.
6️⃣SiteBulb
The last on our list is this desktop-based site crawler and auditing tool. Specifically designed to identify the technical issues on your website, Sitebulb is a highly specialized and functional tool for internal link structure audit.
Highlights & Features
✅Identifies 404 “Not Found” & 410 “Gone” status codes from other 4** codes to highlight the broken links
✅Helps you identify all the webpages in your domain that are linked with broken links
✅Accurate visual site mapping
✅Provides you with actionable hints at the possible reasons behind these broken links
| Pros | Cons |
| Identifies orphan pages | Works on desktop only |
| Detects complex redirect chains | Might slow down the large-scale site’s loading speed |
| Ensures better link equity flow across the site | Not for beginners |
| Re-crawls broken links to re-verify them | — |
| In-depth internal link metrics analysis | — |
| 14-day free trial available | — |
| 3 affordable pricing plans | — |
| A cloud version also exists | — |
The software works seamlessly with Windows and macOS and requires a stable internal connection to perform. To install it, visit the official website of Sitebulb and log in/ sign up. After downloading it, run the software and click on “Create New Project” to perform your first site audit.
This is particularly beneficial for technical SEO experts, content managers, marketers, SEO agencies/freelancers, and site developers who are looking for functional software for internal link structure audit, identifying broken links, and rendering issues.
Common Ways to Fix Broken Internal Links
Fixing the broken internal links is only possible when you have detailed metrics on the existing internal links on your site, all the source codes, and the pages internally linked with the broken links.
However, once you have identified all the broken internal links on your site, you must fix them as soon as possible.
Below, we’ve mentioned a few common fixes suggested by our experts👇
Removing The Broken Link
If you find that the linked content/webpage on your site no longer exists, and you don’t have a valid replacement for that, simply remove the broken link.
Updating The Broken Link
If you find a typo in the URL of the detected broken links, and the page also exists, simply fix the misspelled link and correct the URL.
Using 301 Redirects
If you moved one of your webpages permanently to another server location, you can simply set up a 301 redirect in your CMS to inform the search engine and your users about it. This way, you will be able to pass on the old URL’s link authority to the new URL and preserve its SEO value.
Replacing The Link with A Valid One
If you have deleted one of your webpages but found it to be highly valuable, then you can simply restore it from the backup. Otherwise, you can create a new page with the same URL. However, if you find a similar webpage, simply replace the broken link with the link to the newly published content.
Creating A Custom 404 Page
If you can’t fix the broken links on your site, you can create a custom 404 page with relevant CTAs, a search bar, and links to popular pages within your domain or sitemap that would guide your site visitors to a relevant webpage and help them discover new content.
Best Practices to Use Broken Internal Links Checkers Effectively
So, one thing is clear.
There is no better alternative to broken internal links checkers to identify the broken internal links on your site.
However, following the best practices while using them will only help you ensure the best results for the search engine as well as your site visitors.
Here are A Few Things to Do👇
👉Perform regular site audit
👉Use Google Search Console to detect 404 link errors
👉Do not leave a broken internal link unfixed
All these above-mentioned steps will help you fix broken links on your site on time, leading to improved user experience, reduced crawl budget waste, lower bounce rates, increased user engagement on your site, & higher search engine rankings.
However, it’s also crucial to learn about the common mistakes that most of the site owners/bloggers/content marketers/SEO professionals often make while using the broken internal link checker tools.
Common Errors to Avoid with Broken Internal Link Checker
So, here are the common mistakes that you must avoid at all costs👇
❌Ignoring redirect chains or orphan pages
❌Using a 302 (temporary) redirect when you’ve moved a page permanently
❌Wasting your time fixing not-so-important broken links
❌Not keeping a track of the external links on your site
❌Redirecting all the existing broken links on your site to the homepage only
Always remember, performing regular site audits and analyzing your site’s internal link profile weekly or monthly will help you ensure zero broken links on your site and a seamless link authority distribution across it.
Fix Your Site’s Internal Link Profile Today with Broken Internal Link Checkers
Broken internal links checker tools, such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, etc., are designed to identify not only the 404 broken links, but also other potential link issues that might lead to lost link equity, increased bounce rates, and a major drop in your site’s search engine rankings.
To prevent this loss of link equity and enhance user experience & engagement on your site, you must fix these internal link issues almost immediately so that you get more conversions and sales.
So, don’t wait anymore.
Make up your mind, do some online research, decide on a broken internal link checker, and start auditing your site today.
We hope this blog has been quite helpful to you and would guide you in selecting the best broken internal links checker that would work for you.
That’s it for today.
See you in the next blog.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Do broken internal links hurt your site’s SEO health?
Ans: Broken internal links negatively affect your site’s online rankings and SEO health if left unfixed. They prevent the search engine from discovering, crawling, and indexing specific webpages, leading to less online visibility, user engagement, and poor site credibility.
Q2. Do broken internal links cause Google penalties?
Ans: No. Broken links are never the direct cause of search engine penalties. However, they often fail to guide your site visitors to the intended webpages, causing a poor site experience and a major drop in its online search engine rankings.
Q3. What are the key causes of broken internal links?
Ans: There might be a lot of reasons behind broken internal links, such as deleted pages, a typo in the URL of a specific webpage, changed URL structures without 301 redirects, and more.
Q4. What are the risks of ignoring broken internal links?
Ans: Ignored or unfixed broken links are seriously damaging to your site’s SEO health because they act as roadblocks on your site. They prevent the search engine from discovering and crawling your site’s webpages, leading to delayed crawling, poor user experience, and compromised site credibility. All these result in an ultimate waste of crawl budget and a major drop in your site’s search engine rankings.
Q5. How to find broken internal links easily and quickly?
Ans: According to our experts, the best way to identify the broken internal links on your website is to use specialized tools designed for the purpose of detecting internal links and server errors. Some of the tools that we have personally used for detecting the broken internal links on our clients’ websites include Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Ahrefs, SEMRush, Dr. Link Check, etc.
Q6. How often should a site audit be performed to identify broken internal links?
Ans: If you own a small-scale website, performing a site audit once or twice a year is a good idea. However, for medium-scale and larger content-heavy websites, it is important that you perform an audit every 3 to 6 months or monthly. Also, after redesigning your site, major CMS updates, and content migrations, make sure you schedule a routine site scan.
Q7. How to fix broken internal links on WordPress?
Ans: You can fix the broken internal links on your site in multiple ways. After you are done identifying the broken internal links, you can either remove the link, update it (in case you find a typo in it), use 301 redirects to guide users to the most relevant webpage in your domain, or even create a custom 404 page. However, the best option is to simply replace the broken link with a valid one.
Q8. How to prevent broken internal links in the future?
Ans: You can’t prevent the occurrence of broken internal links on your site. However, by performing regular site audits, you can keep an eye on your site’s internal link structure. Also, make sure you use CMS dependency tags, maintain consistent URL structures, and implement 301 redirects right after renaming/moving your webpages permanently.
Q9. What is the difference between a 404 and other HTTP errors, such as 410, 500, and 403?
Ans: The 404 Not Found error refers to a link resource that does not exist. However, 410 HTTP errors suggest that the link resource has already been deleted. 500 signals a server-side failure, and a 403 error indicates that access to that link resource is forbidden.
Q10. Why is redirecting 404 errors to the homepage not a good idea?
Ans: Redirecting the 404 internal links to your homepage alone will only confuse your visitors, resulting in poor user experience and search engine rankings. Internal links are supposed to guide your site’s visitors to their intended webpages.
However, if you redirect all the broken links to the homepage only, they will fail to land on the intended pages, leading to higher bounce rates & poor site credibility.
