What is Broken Link?
Broken links, also known as dead links, are links that no longer work. Broken links can occur for many reasons, but the most common reason is when a page is deleted or moved to another location which causes the server to display a 404 error i.e. page not found.
On WordPress sites, broken links usually occur when moving the site to a new domain name or when deleting posts or pages without a proper redirect. This is why it is so important to regularly monitor the broken links on your site and fix them, so you can prevent damage to your SEO rankings.
Causes of Broken Link
Before discussing how to find out broken links and how to fix them, you need to know in advance the causes of broken links. The goal is that in the future you can prevent the appearance of broken links and minimize them. Here are some common causes that make links unopenable or broken:
- DNS or Namaserver settings error
- Mistakes when typing links or typos
- Expired domain name
- Domain name change
- Page or post deleted
- Change the permalink of a page or post
You need to remember the things above so that in the future you can minimize the existence of broken links on your website.
How to Find Broken Links on a WordPress Website
Finding broken links can actually be done manually but of course everyone agrees that it is very ineffective and drains a lot of time. Especially if your website is quite old and has a lot of content. So in this section we will provide 2 methods on how to find broken links on your website.
Check Broken Links on Website Using Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help webmasters manage site visibility in search results. This tool also notifies you if there are errors on the website including 404 errors caused by broken links. So make sure you have installed this tool on all the websites you have.
We assume you already have this tool, so the next step is that you first log in to your Google Search Console account, click the Coverage link on the left menu.
Now after you click the Coverage menu, data will appear on the right with the names Error, valid with warning, valid and excluded. To see broken links you can click the error or excluded section then below it will appear error messages on your website. Like below
You just need to click not found 404 to display all the links on the website in detail that are broken links and display a 404 error message.
You can click the download export button on the right to get a list of all 404 error messages on your website. You need this data to fix broken links on the website.
Check Broken Links on Website Using Broken Link Checker
For this method specifically for WordPress website users, we will use the Broken Link Checker plugin. Please be aware that this method will drain resources and will slow down your website. But all decisions are entirely yours. If you do not have Google Search Console, then the other way is to use this method or use paid tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs but we will not explain here.
Back to the topic, so this plugin will check for broken links on the website including internal and external links that generate 404 error messages. First, you must install and activate the Broken Link Checker plugin.
After activation, the plugin will start working in the background to find links in your posts, pages, and comments. You go to the Tools" Broken Links section to see the full report.
If you have had a website for a long time, then this report will also include broken links to third-party websites. You need to manually sort the list to find broken links on the website and keep Broken Link Checker enabled on the website until you fix the broken links. After that, you can disable the plugin. If not deactivated, the plugin will continue to check for broken links and will slow down your server or website.
How to Fix Broken Links in WordPress
We've shown you 2 methods to find broken links on a WordPress website. Now let's discuss how to fix broken links in WordPress easily. The best way to fix a broken link is to redirect it to another page. For example, if you move the content of an article to another address, then you should redirect it to a newer article.
Similarly, if an article no longer exists, then you need to redirect users to a similar page that is closely related to the old article content. You can do this with a 301 redirect. First, you must install and activate the Redirection By John Godley plugin first. If it is installed and active on your WordPress website, the next step is that you must visit Tools " Redirection to set up the redirection. The trick is that you enter the old broken link in the 'Source URL' field and the new URL in the 'Target URL' field.
After that, click the 'Add redirect' button to save the changes. You can now test it by visiting the old broken link, and if it redirects to the new page then it is successful. Then repeat the process for all broken links on your website.