What are Broken Links error:
A dead link or broken link is a link on a website that no longer works. Such as when you click on a link that is supposed to take you to a particular page, but it takes you to another page that shows a 404 error message it is called a broken link.
What are the Causes of Broken Links error:
The website owner entered an improper URL for the link. The required website removed the linked web page.
Or the website owner linked to a site that is behind a firewall or other similar software that does not allow outside access such as a restricted access area on a website.
The website is temporarily or permanently unavailable.
The web page has been deleted from this link.
The web page is outdated.
The website is permanently moved to a new domain.
In simple words, when web developers delete a linked page and place an incorrect URL in a text link, or change a URL address without correctly updating the URL, a broken link is created.
So then searchers browse through your site and click on the link, they may be directed to a page with a 404 error.
Broken Links are so bad for your website:
Broken links make the user experience much displeasing, and can destruct the reputation of your website. It creates bad sense that a website having several broken links are often referred to as “link rot”, which is a term used to describe a site with abundance of broken links.
Broken links create problems for website visitors, they won’t be able to access the desired resource or information. These users to decide to make use of another site to find the necessary information elsewhere. Such a site that hasn’t been updated or not be checked for a long time may suffer from link rot
Now every website experiences a few broken links, and a few may not destroy your website’s life, but there are a lot of broken links not acceptable to your website.
A web page who having many broken links are not good especially if you have an online business. If you are a website owner, it is very important you always please your site visitors. You should make sure that all the links on your website is working so that people will get desired information and trust your site and can never leave your site.
Seeing broken links on a website sooner or later can be frustrating to the end user because people are coming to your site with a purpose and if you cannot provide whatever the visitor needs.
So if user won’t be able to access the desired resource or information. These users to decide to make use of another site to find the necessary information elsewhere and will no longer return to your website because of the bad experience with broken links.
Nowadays the popularity of social media are very high, people now have the opportunity to leave their comments. So, if they had a bad experience with your website they will leave bad comment, and this can further damage the credibility of your website.
Like as, if a new user come to your site and read the bad comments or the new customer won’t be able to finding things who they want, they definitely move the other sites. Because anyone do not have enough time to check that your site is good or bad.
Broken link or dead hyperlinks on websites are not just annoying. Their presence may cause some actual damage to your online business and as well as to your reputation on the Internet!
Abundance of broken links have negative impact on your website’s ratings with major Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.
Cautions against broken links:
We know that traffic is one of the major thing of having a good page ranking on search engines that is why you must ensure that all broken links on your websites are removed as this can help increase traffic on your site.
You will easily find the presence of broken links of your site with the online broken links tools and then remove finding broken links from your site.
It is important to check and update your website regularly especially when using external links because your partner website won’t always notify you if they have made any changes or move the link to another location.
There is also the possibility of external servers being brought down temporarily or permanently and domains could be expired or sold. These are few of the things that you cannot control, but you can make the precautionary action by checking your website regularly with the given precautions.