Broken links

What we check

We collect all links on the home page that point to the same website and request up to 20 of them. We leave out images and documents such as PDF or Word. If an address answers with an error (status 400 or higher) or not at all, we report it as broken. In the report you see up to ten broken addresses with their status.

Why it matters

The home page is the entrance of the website. A broken link there is like a locked door in the reception area:

• Visitors land on an error page and lose trust. Anyone who sees "Page not found" wonders whether the company is still active.
• Google follows links to find the pages of a website and to judge their importance. Broken links waste this attention, and the linked page may be missing from the index.
• Enquiries get lost when it is the link to the contact form or the quote request that leads nowhere.

Typical causes are deleted or renamed pages, a relaunch with new addresses, typos in the menu and links that still point to a test environment.

How to fix it

For every broken link there are two options:

1. Correct the link: if the page still exists under a different address, adjust the link. If it no longer exists, remove the link or replace it with a suitable one.
2. Set up a redirect: if a page has been moved, set up a permanent redirect (301) from the old to the new address. This way links from other websites and old bookmarks keep working too.

WordPress

The plugin "Redirection" manages redirects without programming and logs which addresses return errors. Yoast SEO Premium and Rank Math have a similar function built in.

Wix, Jimdo, Squarespace

Wix has a "Redirect Manager" in the SEO settings, Squarespace a page "URL Mappings". In Jimdo you change the link directly in the menu or in the text element.

After a relaunch

Before going live, make a list of all old addresses and assign a new one to each. This way neither visitors nor Google rankings are lost.

How to check it yourself

Click through the menu, footer and all buttons of the home page. Under "Pages", Google Search Console shows all addresses that Google flags as "Not found (404)".

Frequently asked questions

Do you also check links to other websites?

No, only links within the audited website. You can check external links with tools such as the "Broken Link Checker" or Google Search Console.

A link works for me but is reported as broken. Why?

Some servers block automated requests or only respond after a login. If the page returns an error for our request, we report it. Check the link in a private browser window.