Poor ranking is a serious issue; if your site isn’t ranking on search engines, it can be harder to attract attention to your site. But what is a dead link, and why can it be such a problem? Read on to find out.
First: What Is a Dead Link?
A dead link — also known as a broken link — is a link that leads to nowhere. The site might be permanently unavailable on the world wide web, or it might just be down for maintenance — but whatever the reason, wherever the link initially led to isn’t there now.
This can be a bigger issue in certain situations than in others. If a page is just down temporarily, the dead link won’t likely cause too many problems. If the page is gone permanently, however, you could be looking at serious consequences.
How Does a Dead Link Hurt Your SEO?
Consider this scenario: you’re browsing a webpage and see a useful-looking link. You click on the link, expecting it to take you to a new page. Instead, you get an error message.
Now you’re feeling a little wary. If the site you’re on doesn’t have links that work, how do you know that you can trust it? You might decide that it’s better to find a more reliable site and head back to the search results.
You don’t want people doing this to your site. People leaving causes problems for several reasons:
- Search engines take note of your bounce rate. The bounce rate is, essentially, how long people stay on your page. If people notice dead links, they’re more likely to leave the page. Search engines will see this, assume your site isn’t trustworthy, and lower your ranking.
- People will be less likely to look at the services you have to offer. If people aren’t staying on your site because of broken links, they won’t see much about your services, either. This, in turn, means you’re less likely to get clients.
- You might not effectively be taking advantage of internal linking. Internal linking is a great way to encourage people to explore more of your site. If you have broken internal links, clients can’t get to the pages you want them to.
In addition to the above, search engines pay attention to the links themselves, too. Having working links can increase your ranking; conversely, having broken links can decrease it.
So How Do You Fix Broken Links?
If you have dead links on your site, there’s a simple solution: replace them with working links.
That can be easier said than done. If you have a site with many different pages, it can take a while to check every link. In addition, it’s harder to keep track of external links than internal ones. You’d have to be extra vigilant to make sure that no external links are breaking — which isn’t always time you have.
Using a link-checking tool — or hiring a team to handle the task for you — can be a great way to determine if you happen to have any dead links on your site. This way, you won’t waste time searching page by page for broken links.
Once you’ve identified any broken links, the first thing to do is check that everything’s spelled correctly. Sometimes, the issue isn’t that the page is gone; the link just wasn’t put in correctly! Addressing spelling issues can be a simple way to fix a broken link.
If you’ve confirmed the site’s really not there, it’s time to replace the link. Take out the broken link, then find a relevant replacement and add it to the site.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to start with the highest-priority pages first. These are the ones you really want to rank, after all; you can worry about other pages if you have time.
Practice SmarterTM
Preventing dead links is important.1 It’s not enough to answer the question, “what is a dead link” — you need to make sure that they aren’t on your site, too. At Dental Intelligence, we can help you add our Patient Portal to your website and provide you with dental marketing tools. Schedule a demo today to see our practice performance solution in action.
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