How to Avoid Link Rot: Causes and Prevention
Suppose you found an interesting hyperlink when reading the content on a page. You click on it, only to be disappointed with a ‘file not found’ text. This phenomenon is called link rot.
Link rot is one of the major ways a page can ruin the audience’s user experience. Nobody wants to see a dead end upon clicking on a link text.
Moreover, link rot also deals critical damage to the site’s and page’s SEO. Google doesn’t like broken, orphaned, or irrelevant links. So, as a website owner, you should also avoid them.
This article describes the various points surrounding link rots, their causes, and prevention methods.
Table of Contents
What Is Link Rot
Link rot is when a hyperlink stops leading to the page or file or opening the pop-up window it was originally supposed to. You will usually see a ‘can’t reach this page’ text.
Other times, you may also see a ‘404 error’ page, indicating that the page that the link is trying to lead no longer exists at that address.
However, in the worst-case scenario, the link may lead to the website’s homepage instead of the specific page it was initially linked to.
As such, users can get confused when they click on the hyperlink. Suppose you find a hyperlink saying ‘Generative AI vs SEO’.
However, when you click on it, it leads to the site’s homepage instead of the page that describes the topic in question. It can cause several issues that we described later in this blog.
What Is a Broken Link?
When a hyperlink has a link rot and fails to redirect the users to the supposed page, that link is known as a broken, dead, or orphaned link. You can’t easily identify a broken link until you click on it.
If your page has such broken links, you should immediately remove or edit them.
Why Is Link Rot a Problem for Your Page’s SEO?
Link rot is very dangerous for the SEO of a page and domain. Here are some common reasons-
Bad User Experience
You probably already know that the one major factor of on-page SEO is the quality of user experience.
Even if you have built your web pages with utmost care and easy navigation, a simple link rot can cause disappointed traffic.
It is even more dangerous when the anchor text of the link rot is something engaging or interesting. Readers will be curious to read the source, only to be disappointed.
- It may increase the page’s bounce rate.
- The readers may start to doubt the trustworthiness of your content.
- In the worst-case scenario, you may lose some members who logged in or subscribed to your site.
Google Crawlers Dislike Broken Links
Google crawlers check every link on your content and page to determine its quality. Links to relevant and authoritative sites usually boost a page’s ranking.
Meanwhile, a broken link can negatively affect SEO. Broken links are widely found in outdated websites, and some neglected sites also often contain an abundance of them.
So, when Google finds multiple broken links on a page, it may deem it untrustworthy or outdated, which can lead to a lower rank on the SERP.
On the one hand, you lose a potential SEO boost for a link, and on the other hand, you risk your page ranking lower due to the broken link.
Competitors Taking Advantages of Broken Backlinks
Suppose a backlink to one of your pages isn’t working. That means that the link on the linking site is broken.
If that website has a high domain authority (DA), your competitors will want to take advantage of it.
Also known as Link Fix, your competitors will likely create high-quality content to replace the broken link with a backlink to theirs. It is also easy to persuade the site owner to send them the backlink here.
Causes of Link Rot
Link rot can happen for various reasons. Some of them are-
- The targeted page by the link has been removed or moved, but the hyperlink wasn’t updated
- The website owner has updated the URL of the targeted page
- The domain of the targeted page has expired without renewal
- The link URL was typed incorrectly during the creation of the hyperlink
Sadly, these events are happening way too often online, causing broken links to happen so much. As such, big chunks of information are disappearing permanently from the web.
The Three Types of Link Rot Cases
There are three types of broken links that may cause link rot and harm your page’s SEO or user experience. Let’s go over them one by one-
1. External Broken Link
Perhaps the most common broken links are external links, as you are unable to notice them immediately.
You often need to link to other websites to enrich your content with value. An external broken link occurs when an external hyperlink on your page does not lead to its targeted page.
These link rots can cause a bad user experience because the audience can’t access the sources or further resources you are referencing.
2. Internal Broken Link
An internal broken link is similar to an external one, except that the link here is supposed to redirect to a page on the same site.
It is basically when an internal link in a page doesn’t work. Luckily, it is easy to deal with these links. Before removing or moving a page, you can simply edit all the links that used to lead to it.
3. Backlink Rot
A backlink is a link from another website to a page on your site. When one of these backlinks doesn’t work, it is called a broken backlink. These link rots cause you to lose potential link juice.
As such, before you remove or move a page or update its URL, carefully check whether and which sites are linking to it. If many authoritative sites are sending backlinks, it is ideal not to remove that page.
How to Prevent Link Rot on Your Site
Website owners and experts use various methods to prevent link rots from harming their sites’ quality and SEO. We have discussed some of them below so you can utilize them.
Ensure the URLs Are Correct
When creating hyperlinks to interlink your pages, ensure the link URL is typed correctly. You can check by clicking on the hyperlink and seeing if it works.
Another way to prevent inaccurate URLs is to copy the link address of the targeted page and paste it directly into the right place instead of typing it manually.
Keep a Consistent URL
If your link URLs are consistent, you will likely make fewer typos when typing them on the hyperlink. Aside from that, consistent URLs are also better for your SEO.
It makes it easier for Google crawlers to assess the links.
Using the 301 Redirect
When moving the content from an address, you can use the 301 redirect to lead people to the new address.
So, now, when someone clicks on the hyperlink that would have led to the earlier address, it will instead bring the audience to the place where you moved the page’s content.
Every time you move some content in your website to a new URL, use the 301 redirect.
How to Protect Against Link Rot
While prevention is better than cure, it is always best to double-check everything to keep your site safe from link rots.
Using Broken Link Detector Tools
You may use tools online to detect broken links on a domain. Here are some-
Google Search Console
Google’s free search console tool has a crawling feature that excels at finding broken links. Moreover, it is also easy to use. Here’s how-
- After opening the tool, you will be able to select the website or page you want to inspect.
- Click on ‘Coverage’ from the left side of the screen. If issues with the website or page are present, it will show them to you.
- Go to the ‘Error’ section. You can find various crawler errors here, including the ‘404 errors’. These are the broken links.
It is better to fix all the errors and issues shown in this section rather than only the broken links.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool
One of the most common ones people use for this is the ‘Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool’.
Luckily, you can use the free version of the tool to find broken links on your website. You just need to download it.
- You can search for certain URLs within your website or index for the whole site. The tool will work like Google crawlers and run a scan.
- Afterward, go to the response codes tab.
- Select the ‘client error 404’ on the right side of the screen. It will show you a list of broken links alongside the pages that contain them.
Now that you can identify the link rots, you can replace or edit them.
Manual Checking
As you can guess, manual checking implies checking every hyperlink and other links on each page of your website one by one by clicking on them.
It is better to do so on smaller websites, but it can be time-consuming on larger ones. If you have the latter, you can focus on your most important pages first, including your homepage.
Requesting Users for Feedback and Criticisms
Getting feedback from visitors is a fine way to be aware of any issue with the page, the user experience, or broken links. It will help your site in ways that you probably didn’t think about-
- It can help detect issues and errors on the page that are undetected by many tools.
- It makes the audience feel engaged and heard.
- It allows you to find issues quickly that would take way longer to discover otherwise.
People love to be the first to report any issues. This may encourage them to participate more in the site’s activities and help with organic traffic.