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Do you know what a broken link is?

From time to time, each site needs to check for broken links - those that do not lead anywhere. After clicking on them user has to see error message 404 (nothing found). As a result, he loses the desire to return to your site and you lose another visitor who could become a buyer. In addition, this negatively affects behavioral factors site.

In addition to visitors, search engines do not like broken links on the site. Their presence quite may cause a decrease in position web resource in search results. And if the search bot at each visit manages to find broken links on the site (accumulation), search engines can assign it status Abandoned" and completely delete it from the search results.

Therefore, if you are serious about the effective promotion of your site, you will definitely need to find out how to find broken links in order to free it from excess garbage.

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How easy it is to find broken links on the site

Checking the site for broken links can be done in several ways:

  1. Manually. If your site is not too voluminous and you can walk through all its pages and check the broken links along the way, do it as quickly as possible. Otherwise, another visit to the search bot, which will certainly find “disgusting garbage not delivered on time”, will entail sanctions by search engines.
     
  2. View indexed pages in a search engine. Analyze received using the operator "site:" list and do a manual search for non-working links on each page from the issue.


     
  3. Using webmaster tools in Yandex. This service provides site verification for broken links, which makes it possible to familiarize yourself with their number and addresses.


     
  4. Google Search Console. The analysis tool provided here also allows you to identify problem links.


     
  5. Online services, who specialize in such services. Usually you only need to enter the address of the web resource for which you want to check the broken links and the captcha to prove that you are not a robot.


     
  6. Using specialized software (e.g. Xenu). Unlike online services, they usually provide an opportunity to customize future scanning.

How broken links appear on the site

Most often, the causes of their occurrence are:

  1. Removing old unnecessary pages and files. Since inside the site usually a link is established between the pages (internal skipping), then the removal of one of them makes the links that led to it inoperative. Therefore, it is recommended that you regularly check the broken links after such actions with the pages of your web resource.
     
  2. Changes in the structure of the site. Sometimes when creating new sections, existing pages are placed in them. All the same skipping causes the appearance of non-working links as a result of such a movement. A search for broken links will show you very unexpected results after that.
     
  3. Webmaster errors. A person has the property of making mistakes and therefore from time to time the one who creates the links makes mistakes in the addresses of the pages to which they should refer. Therefore, each of them must be checked immediately. Bit links are easiest to detect at this stage.

If you have broken links on the site, then this cannot lead to anything good. Irresponsible neglect of this problem can negate all your efforts regarding the promotion of the site. Therefore do not be lazy and do not forget “Take out the underlying garbage”.

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