Have you ever encountered a page that says ‘404 Page not found error’? Such links are called broken links, and building backlinks by replacing that link with a working link is called broken link building.
But what exactly is it, and how can it benefit your website? In this blog, we’ll break down the concept of broken link building in simple language, explain the steps to build broken backlinks, and outline the SEO advantages it can bring to your online presence.
Table of Contents
What Is Broken Link In SEO?
Before diving into broken link building, let’s start with the basics. When a webpage’s link no longer reaches its intended destination, either because the connected website has been taken down or its URL has changed, we say the link is broken. These are also known as dead links or 404 errors.
When a user selects a non-functional hyperlink, they commonly discover an error page, leading to a potential source of frustration. From an SEO perspective, search engines like Google aim to provide users with the best possible experience and favour websites that offer high-quality, functional links.
There are different types of broken links. Some broken link examples are external, internal, and broken backlinks, which are bad for SEO. To give you a brief understanding of what they are, you can comprehend how they affect the website below.
- External Broken Link: This type of link spoils the user experience as error pages that no longer exist can leave your website less trustworthy.
- Internal Broken Link: When internal links are broken, it makes it difficult for Google to crawl, as crawlers cannot move on to other pages.
- Broken Backlinks: Links on other websites that lead back to yours are called backlinks. These are links to your content on other sites, typically owned by other businesses. This broken link can damage your standing on search engines as it hampers the website authority.
In the end, whichever type of broken link it is, it can hurt the website’s ranking, and Google’s Algorithm will not provide authority to your website. Therefore, broken links in SEO are incredibly damaging to the website. Some broken link examples are 404 pages not found, invalid host, wrong URL structure, etc.
Also, what causes broken backlinks on a website? Let us discover some of the reasons.
Why Do Broken Links Occur?
The reasons for broken links are:
- A deleted page
- Renamed page
- Restructuring of the website
- Pages or links were moved
- Changes to the domain name and URL
How To Find SEO Broken Links?
Now that you understand the meaning of broken links in SEO, its types, and broken link examples, let us figure out ways to find and look for SEO broken links. However, understanding the reasons and how it occurs is not enough; you must be able to find them on your website and other websites.
So, to start broken link building, the first step is identifying and spotting opportunities on other websites in your niche.
There are several SEO tools that professionals can use to identify broken links. Some examples are Google Search Console, Check My Links, Ahrefs, etc., which are valuable tools that help you discover broken links at scale. With the help of these tools, you can look for multiple pages in your niche and scale up the process to discover broken links.
Broken Link Building: What Is It?
Finding and replacing the dead links with working and functional links is called broken link building. The primary agenda of doing so is to improve the user experience and reduce the bounce rates on the website because you do not want to send a user or visitor to a page where a user cannot take further action.
Advantages Of Broken Link Building
The broken link-building strategy has many benefits. Professionals can build an SEO strategy that will positively impact the position of the website:
- Google’s Algorithm will consider the website trustworthy and authoritative
- Improve your site’s relevancy to produce quality content
- It helps you boost your site’s visibility and lead conversion rate
- It allows you to reach new audiences
Steps To Build Broken Backlinks
To avoid potential damage to your site, incorporate these steps in your SEO strategy to build broken backlinks. Once you find and identify the links, you must create quality content matching the broken link.
- Generate Quality Content: If you want to replace the broken link that was either deleted or removed, you must consider replacing the content page with relevant information for the target audience.
- Notify The Webmaster: After you find the prospective website, the next step is to notify the webmaster about the broken link and provide them with the replaced content link explaining why it can be a good fit for the website.
- Check Progress: In this step, consider sending a follow-up message or an email to get a positive reply for a successful replacement link.
Conclusion
It’s a win-win approach that benefits your website and helps owners maintain a better user experience. By following the steps outlined above and leveraging the benefits of broken link building, you can enhance your online presence and strengthen your SEO efforts. So, get started and watch your website’s authority and rankings soar!
