Website links play a crucial role in any successful SEO strategy. Therefore, it is extremely important that you distribute both external and internal links to your site and properly implement them into your website’s navigation system. Of course, you should make sure that you set up a solid permalink structure so that your pages, posts, and other custom post types are both SEO and user friendly.
However, if one of your links (or multiple links for that matter) is not working properly, all the efforts mentioned above may be in vain. Having broken links can significantly harm your SEO and user friendliness of your WordPress site. as a whole, so it is imperative Find out if there are any bad connections and then correct them accordingly.
Fortunately, finding and fixing broken links in WordPress is pretty easy with the help of the right tools. And in this article, we will present you some of the best ones and show you detailed instructions on how to find and fix your broken links with the help of the mentioned tools. we are going too talk a little about broken links in general and explain how they can harm your siteso be sure to read the following:
In simple terms, broken links (or dead links) represent links that have stopped workingfor this or that reason. For example, a broken link can occur in WordPress if you have moved your site to another location (with a new domain) or if a particular page or post no longer exists (or is not redirected properly). This results in a server being shown 404 error (also known as “page not found”). In some cases, a simple typo can cause the connection to break.
Broken links not only ruin the user experience of your site visitors, but they can also hurt your overall SEO ranking. It’s pretty simple – if users click on links they’re interested in and get a 404 page error, they may get angry and decide to leave your site permanently, which can lead to higher bounce rates.
Moreover, having broken outbound links on your site can also affect your link equity (or link water). That is, search engine crawlers collect page data and rank accordingly to determine the authority of a page. So it’s safe to say that having a broken outbound link can easily lead to a lower ranking of your site.
In order not to encounter all these problems, you should take care of both your internal and external links and fix all such broken links. This time, we will show you how to find and fix broken links in WordPress with four different methods. These will include some of the best premium and free SEO tools such as: A popular plugin called Broken Link Checker alongside SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console.
Google Search Console It’s a great choice if you’re looking for a free tool that will allow you to easily find links with 404 errors.
First, log into your Google Search Console account. back then shoot me Scope button (found in the menu on the left side of the screen).
you can find your 404 errors below excluded tab (or below Errors tab). Just click on one of the two tabs and you will be able to see all the problems Google has found.
click Not Found (404) to find out which links are broken on your site.
Finally, be sure to click. Export >> Download CSV Press the button to download the list of all 404 errors. You will be able to use this to fix your broken links.
Ahrefs It is a great SEO tool with lots of great options that will allow you to analyze your competition and do a thorough keyword research to make the best keyword strategy for your site. On top of that, Ahrefs comes with a useful feature to help you monitor your website health and generate a complete report about your broken links.
First of all, sign up for an Ahrefs account or login to an existing one.
At that time, after clicking Site Explorerenter your domain name and you will enable the scanning feature. This may take some time.
After the tool has finished crawling your site, you will see the results. click Pages >> Best of Links and choose 404 status.
You will be able to export your report in CSV format to fix broken links of your site.
SEMRush It is another great SEO tool that allows you to monitor your rankings and overall link health. You will be able to use site auditing tools that can scan your site for any errors. Although this is a paid type of service, you can also use the free SEMRush account. This will have limits though, such as the ability to only crawl up to 100 pages on a domain (the paid starter plan allows for 100,000 pages per month).
After logging into your SEMRush account, shoot me Site Audit connection It is located in the menu on the left side of the screen.
One time Site Audit page opens, you can click on it. New project button (located in the upper right corner of the screen) and add your site.
From then on, you will need to add your domain and project name and click on it. Create project.
Next, it’s time to configure your site audit settings. You will be able to select the number of pages you want the tool to scan and you will also be able to select a scan source. At that time, shoot me Start Site Audit button.
This will enable the scanning process. Depending on the number of pages you select, this may take several minutes.
After the process is complete, you are free to choose your domain name. You will see it under the Site Audit section. Click on your domain name and you will be able to see your report.
To check all broken links, click on the link Broken (inside Scanned Pages Episode).
Finally, hit Export button in the upper right corner. This action will download the report you should use when fixing broken links on your WordPress site.
Finally, if you don’t want to use any of the tools we mentioned above (for whatever reason), you can always find your broken links with the help of a WordPress plugin. a plugin called Broken Link Checker It is a great choice as it allows you to easily monitor internal and external links on your site to identify any broken 404 error links.
After installing and activating the plugin, it will instantly start the process of searching for broken links between your posts, pages, comments, blogroll and custom domains (optional).
To see the full report, head Tools >> Broken Links.
select Broken You can see the list of both internal and external broken links by clicking the tab.
Make sure the Broken Link Checker plugin is active until you fix all broken links on your site. After that, we recommend disabling the plugin for now to avoid slowing down your server.
Now that you’ve tried four different ways to find broken links on your WordPress site, it’s time to show you how to fix them. By far, the best way to do this is to redirect your links to another page. Say you’ve completely removed a page or post from your site. In this case, you may want to somehow direct your visitors to the page or post about the old one. Or, if your content is now located at a different URL, simply redirect your page or post to a new one instead.
All this can be easily done by creating 301 redirects. we recommend that you use redirection It’s a plugin for the task as it’s easy to use and comes with features to let you set up and manage your WordPress redirects effectively and simply. You will also be able to track 404 errors and use a configurable log option that allows you to view all redirects that occur on your site, including information about the visitor, browser used, and referrer.
After installing and activating the plugin, to go Tools >> Routing to set up your redirects.
After going through a quick and intuitive setup process, go ahead and add your old link (it’s broken) In the “Source URL” field and then add the new one in the field named “Target URL”.
shoot me Add Routing button To store your settings
Go ahead and test the redirects you set up by going to the old link. If you have added your new URL correctly, you will be automatically redirected to the new page.
Just do the same for all other broken links found on your site
Solution
Because links represent the essential elements of every website, it is extremely important to monitor their health and make sure they are fixed and properly redirected in case a 404 error occurs. As you can see from all the steps we’ve presented above, finding and fixing such links on your WordPress site is pretty easy if you use the right tools. Whether you want to use paid options like SEMRush or Ahrefs, opt for a free option like Google Search Console, or just plan to use the help of a plugin, each of these tools will help you analyze health. Follow the instructions of your preferred method carefully and you’ll be able to fix any broken links and help ensure your SEO is as effective as possible.