BROKEN LINKS WILL HARM YOUR SEARCH ENGINE RANKING
Search engine results are becoming increasingly important as more people use the World Wide Web to find goods, services, and information. One way to help your website achieve a good ranking on Google is to ensure your site is free of incorrect and broken links.
WHAT GOOGLE SAYS ABOUT LINKS
When your website is ready:
1. Have other relevant sites link to yours.
2. Submit your website link or URL to relevant directories and other industry-specific sites.
3. Make a website with a clear hierarchy and text links.
4. Every web page should be reachable from one static text link.
5. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.
6. Check for broken links and correct HTML.
BROKEN LINKS ARE BAD FOR USERS AND SEO
It is essential to trade links with relevant websites. But the more sites you deal with, the more difficult it becomes to detect a bad connection.
Wrong links happen when:
– The company goes out of business or abandons its website
– Domain name change
– Website/ company merger
– Page, pages, or directory sections are deleted or no longer continued
– Inexperienced Web editors or content managers make coding mistakes
Google will detect all wrong links on your website, and robots or crawlers routinely gather information from your website on a cyclic basis. You may experience a drop-off or ranking change if your website contains terrible links.
THINK OF LINKING THIS WAY
Links are mini-direction maps. They tell search engine robots where to find content on and off your website. Imagine someone giving you harmful or inaccurate directions. Would you trust them? Would you come back or ask them again? Search engine robots work the same way.
WEBSITE REDESIGNS CAN AFFECT YOUR LINKS
When you redesign your website, it will likely have a new link structure and page names. For example, your home page may be given a new file name (index.asp) instead of (index.html). Your interior pages may use new naming conventions, such as “Suffolk-home-remodeling-team.html” instead of “our-team.html.”
Before the new website pages are live, your web admin should redirect all your old or existing web pages, specifcally for customers with bookmarks. A redirect also tells the search engines to find your new interior pages.
LINKING CHECKING
A few free and shareware programs on the market can scan your website’s link structure and detect and report any bad inbound or outbound links.
There is popular software called Link Sleuth™, a free, multi-threaded link-checking tool that analyzes websites for broken links. It runs on Windows, requires basic webmaster knowledge, and has pretty good documentation.
SOLID LINKS BUILD A SOLID REPUTATION
Whether you manually check your links, use software, or a link-checking service, a solid, intact link structure reflects well on your website. It means you care about your visitors’ online experience and website presence. Wrong links may harm your website’s search engine ranking and leave visitors with a less-than-pleasurable experience.
Essential reading: A novice performing SEO may incur a Google Penalty
ABOUT VISIONEFX
The VISIONEFX SEO team understands that you want your business website to get top exposure on Google. To do that, you need professional search engine optimization. We build an SEO strategy with your traffic goals in mind from planning to launch.
Please read what our customers have to say about VISIONEFX on Google Reviews.
For more information, call (757) 619-6456 or email info@visionefx.net.
Also, please take a look at VISIONEFX search engine optimization, part of our premier SEO maintenance service packages for your business ranking on Google and AI Search!
Also, see related SEO and Web Development articles below.
MONITOR YOUR WEBSITE
BREAKING GOOGLE BARRIERS
CHECK YOUR WEBSITE FUNCTIONALITY
RESEARCH WEBSITE RANKING
GOOGLE IS CHANGING HOW YOUR WEBSITE GETS FOUND IN SEARCHES
