Broken links are a common issue with many websites which affects their performance in terms of SEO and ease of use. The breaks occur when the URL does not work or does not lead to the intended page indicated by the link. Reasons for links to break include typos in the URL, changes made to the URL or content being removed from the link landing page.

Broken links are bad for SEO purposes for two main reasons. Firstly, when Google spiders crawl your site in order to rank and index it, they will stop at a broken link. If there are too many, Google will not index your site as it will be considered as undergoing maintenance or still being created. If there are a few broken links, Google spiders will not be able to crawl your site thoroughly which will have a negative effect upon your Google ranking. Secondly, broken links are very frustrating for visitors to your website; for example if you have a ‘Read More’ link which does not work when a user clicks on it. This will cause people to leave your website and probably not visit it again. It is this lack of ease of use that Google is trying to eliminate from its search results, therefore your website will lose rank through broken links.

You will probably be wondering how you can check your website for broken links. To check them manually will take a long time and there is always the chance that you could still overlook an issue. To combat this, Chameleon Web Services offer a full broken link checker service for your website. Our software will search your website for any broken links and you will receive a full report of them, supported by advice on how to fix them. If you prefer, we can fix the links for you when given access to your website, removing all the stress for you.

If you would like your website links checked, please contact us today.