A broken link is a link that leads to a page which no longer exists or cannot be reached. Users usually end up on an error page, typically a 404.
Broken links can affect both internal links within a website and external links to other sites.
How do broken links happen?
They usually appear when pages are deleted, moved or renamed without the links being updated.
Typical causes:
- deleted pages
- changed URLs
- typos in the link
- external websites that have gone offline
- faulty redirects
On large websites, online shops and older blog articles in particular, broken links tend to pile up.
Why broken links are a problem
They spoil the experience, because visitors do not find what they came for. They can also signal to search engines that a website is poorly maintained.
Too many broken links can hurt SEO, because internal link authority is lost and search engines run into problems while crawling.
Broken links should therefore be checked regularly and either removed, corrected or redirected to a suitable page.