Navigating the Maze of Broken Links: Why They Matter and How to Fix Them

A broken link is a hyperlink directing to a page or resource that is nonexistent. Often, these are links to pages that have either been moved or deleted without implementing an appropriate redirect. Users typically encounter a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status code from the server.

Broken links drastically impair user experience, leading to frustration and likely raising your website's bounce rate. Additionally, they can negatively affect your SEO, as search engines might downgrade your site's ranking due to these non-functional links.

Examples of broken links can range from malformed URLs, omitted brackets, extra slashes, to incorrect protocols. Furthermore, broken links may arise when the host server is either misconfigured or overwhelmed, causing connection resets.

Broken links often result when you modify, relocate, or erase a page without setting up a suitable redirect. Alternatively, they can happen if an external website alters or removes a URL you are linked to.

Broken link hijacking is a form of attack that manipulates expired, unlinked, or inactive external links on a webpage. Cyber attackers can exploit these links to compromise your site or divert web traffic.

Besides impacting user experience, broken backlinks can also deteriorate your brand's reputation and credibility. Users may correlate your brand with the inconvenience of encountering a broken link, thus negatively affecting their perception of your website.

Though both detrimental, broken links are inactive links stemming from technical issues, while lost links are links that were once operational but have since become inactive. Both can undermine your website's authority.

To eliminate a broken link from Google Search effectively, you should update your site's content and ensure your server returns a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status code. This notifies Google that the content should be de-indexed.