How to find and repair a broken link
Website links play a crucial role in any successful SEO strategy. That’s why it’s very important that you distribute external and internal links on your site. And implement them properly in your website’s navigation system. Of course, you also need to make sure that you implement a solid permalink structure. All this for your pages, publications, and any other type of custom publication in an SEO-friendly way. Here are some pointers on how to find and repair a broken link.
How to find broken links?
There are automated detection services that locate dead links for you and warn you as soon as they appear. All you have to do is submit your site address and the software does the rest. Depending on the size of the site, it may of course take some time to see the full results, but you will get a complete list of all the problematic links. Whether they are links to pages that no longer exist, websites that no longer exist or links that you have coded incorrectly, you will then have the option to either remove the suspicious hyperlink or correct it.
How to find and repair a broken link: avoid hyperlinks
Avoid using hyperlinks in your website unless they are really necessary. A hyperlink is a link to an actual page rather than a homepage. They are also called internal links or anchor texts. Whether it is an internal or external link, if you feel that the site is a reliable source of information, you should definitely use hyperlinks.
Three options
Once you’ve found the broken links you can: modify the broken link: (you just need to correct the link by specifying the new address of the page or the address of a new equivalent page although it belongs to another site); remove the broken link (when the link points to a page that has been removed and there are no real similar pages); or keep the broken link (when the page to which your site points is temporarily unavailable).
Remember: Broken links are not only bad for humans; they are also bad for bots. Specifically, the bots used by search engines like Google. Since links are key elements of every website, it is extremely important to monitor their health and ensure that they are corrected and properly redirected in case a 404 error occurs.