How To Fix Dead Links and Save Your Traffic
ByWelcome back
Dead Links Kill Your Traffic
Online business owners know what links are and how important they are. A link is a portal to your site that may come from your own site or an outside source. Links help visitors find their way to your site and navigate through your pages.
You can almost think of your links as your website’s roads. When one of those links is “dead” or “broken”, traffic cannot get through. The road is closed. If you’ve ever driven on a road for a long time, and right before you get to your destination, you realize the road is closed, you know how frustrating it can be.
Your website visitors experience the same frustration when trying to navigate their way through broken links. In most cases, they won’t try to find an alternate route; they’ll simply click away from the site and find the information they are looking for elsewhere.
Dead links are a common problem on the internet and can happen naturally over time. If a website owner regularly checks them and fixes broken links as they occur, they shouldn’t see any problems with traffic.
Problems can occur when dead links build up and become out of control. As stated above, when a website visitor cannot get to the information they want, they’ll click away out of frustration.
If the majority of a website’s visitors are experiencing that frustration, it is easy to see that the website’s traffic will go down dramatically.
A website owner can check their links for free by using a link-check service, which are available quite readily online. A good one to use is found at http://www.indiabook.com/webmaster/link.html
With this service, you type in the URL of a page on your site and the checker will scan all the links on it, automatically checking to see if the links are good or bad. Within a few seconds, you will see the results on your screen. Each link will be displayed with the word “good” or “bad” next to it.
If a site is built with an HTML editor such as FrontPage or DreamWeaver, consult the software for easy ways to fix broken links.
For those using WordPress to build their sites, a plug-in is available that can remove and fix these links. The plug-in is found here: http://techblissonline.com/broken-links-remover-wordpress-plugin/
Dead links can be a common problem among website owners but they don’t have to take your traffic away. By routinely checking your site and making repairs, your site will have a clear “road system” to help your traffic get to where it wants to go.
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4 Comments
May 28th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Funny that you post on this subject – when I came to visit your blog I was just in the process of fixing old broken links.
I have begun using Google Webmaster Tools more and more for this purpose. When the broken link is to a page which has just moved and which might be indexed, or linked from other sites, I sometimes find it simpler to set up 301 redirects (through cPanel or otherwise) instead of searching the web or any old incorrect link.
I also use the “Broken Link Checker” plugin in all my blogs. This is great and tells me on my dashboard if there are any broken links. It also makes it very fast and simple to correct them.
Very good post and an important point which is too easily forgotten about!
Anna’s last blog post..Changing my Mind about StomperNet
May 29th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Im a link builder, my goal is making sure the effort I put into a link stays linked. Clients can sometimes change a site or get rid of pages in a site. Its common practice to go back and fix later. This isn’t something I would advise. We start forming habits that can be counter productive in the future. I found it ironic that these comments were made right after a procrastination article.
First, always have a system that tells you where your links are. I like to have an excel sheet where I organize it by directories, Blogs and Articles, Social Networking Sites, Video, and Complimentary Sites, all in different tabs. Within each tab in excel I have the Parent Site, its page rank, the url of where the link is located and its current rank or status. If there are user names and passwords involved always pick a standard and keep it safe.
Using this method you keep your links updated and you keep a good track of how often your updating your networking links. SEO has proven the need for quality link building. The results will always show. For Local Online Marketing these links are crucial to set you above your local competitors. I have been specializing in the Online Dental Marketing and Dealership Marketing for over 5 years now and once you have a recipe that works you keep to it and adjust with the changes. Broken links hurt! Always stay on top of them and always update them. If its from your own site where the problem starts be responsible. If its in someone else s site get to it quickly or build a strong bond to have the webmaster always indicate to you any changes.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Hey Warren,
Thanks for the comment.
I love your idea of the excel sheet – you said “First, always have a system that tells you where your links are. I like to have an excel sheet where I organize it by directories, Blogs and Articles, Social Networking Sites, Video, and Complimentary Sites, all in different tabs. Within each tab in excel I have the Parent Site, its page rank, the url of where the link”
Thanks
May 30th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Hi Anna,
I use Netfirms as my host and they don’t have Cpanel but I’m sure there are other ways to setup a 301 redirect. I had read about that but never did anything about it. The plugin is very helpful to me