What Are Dead & Broken Links

Dead links & broken links are just that, links on a website site that are no longer valid. This might be a website or page no longer exists, an internal page that no longer exists or an age-old spelling mistake. www,google.com is a simple mistake to make. Checking your website for broken links should form part of your website’s 6 monthly health checks.

External links on your website are a great idea. They provide proof of research when saying all spiders are venomous.¹²

They also help improve your SEO, using an SEO plugin like Yoast will inform you that you need external links and internal links.

Internal links are easy to deal with, you might update or change a page title or name to improve SEO but this will require you to update your website to link to the new page. External links on the other hand are out of your control

Why Repair Dead & Broken Links

Dead links might harm your SEO ranking, but SEO is a complicated science constantly changing. By making your website the best it can be will help you, clients, and Google have the best experience.

Below we are going to find dead links so you can review your site periodically.

False Positives

Social Media link errors will be expected. When we test this link, it works. This is because LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter don’t like bots. Meaning when we click the link, it works and there are no changes to be made.

Please follow our WordPress Backup recipe before cooking

Find & Repair Dead And Broken Links

As part of our periodic site maintenance checking hyperlinks still work means your visitors have a better experience

Print Tutorial Pin Tutorial

Computer Time 20

Total Time 20

Equipment

Atomseo Dead Link Checker https://error404.atomseo.com/

Ingredients

Website

Website

Instructions

Scan Web Site

Navigate to Atomseo (other scanners exist, this is just my favorite).
Enter your website address and press Check Site.
Atomseo will scan your website and check any link available, then display a list of broken links.

Test Links

In a new tab, login into WordPress (yourdomain.com/wp-admin)
Go back to AtomSEO list of broken links
Take note of the URL that is being displayed as broken on the left, then click the Page link
Locate your broken link and test. There may be false positives, many social media links will appear broken but work.

Fix Broken Links

As we are logged into WordPress you will see a toolbar at the top of your screen, press Edit Page
Locate the link, press Edit and update the URL

Post Author

Tom Hobbs

Tom has worked for small business for 20 years providing IT support and know how to entrepreneurs

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