Sometimes we are certain we have done everything correct to our website for good ranking : Perfect content, super SEO and a lot of technical optimizations. The website runs fast but still no luck at high raking. Why this happens? A reason causing this are the broken links of your site. By the end of this article you will learn why your website should not have broken links and some useful tips to avoid this bad situation.

It’s very nice surfing the internet buying products or services, but I m always fan of walking out home for research, even for a while. Although Im web developer, I enjoy going out for shopping most of time, instead of sitting on a chair ordering from my mobile. I believe it’s the feeling of look around live images and colors of products. So my shopping “therapy” starts from going out. I will now give a live example of what is going on when you don’t find the product you want in a store. Believe me the same is for the internet and I will explain shortly.

Real life example

Imagine you go out to find a product you need. A toaster. Your old toaster has crashed and you have heard that “The amazing electric store” has a super deal in toasters. What a great chance for you! It’s the right time! So you go out and find your way to “The amazing electric store”. Outside the store you read a big sign says : 40% sales on every toaster! And that makes you happy since you think that you will have your new toaster in low price! You get in and you start searching for the toaster area. But when there is no toaster area! Maybe it never existed or removed! The shelves are empty! This makes you disappointed and maybe angry. You ask for the manager of the store to complain, but he/she doesn’t have a clue of the sale! You leave the store and you promise yourself never return for another product. This is an example it can take place in real life. I m one of those who had happened. Not for a toast but other product.

Internet market example

Let’s go now in digital life and market. You use google to find a product you need. And you want to get a good offer if it’ possible. You type : toast offers. And you click on the first link the search engine appears in front of your eyes in organic search. But when you get in the webpage you see a “Sorry the page you are searching is not found!” The worst scenario is to see a blank page or a page with a message like this :

You feel the same as in the physical store, disappointed and maybe angry. You probably won’t visit again the specific e-shop. Think that a lot of people might act like you if they cannot find the same product in the same eshop. Google knows your behavior. Google knows your intentions. Google knows even if you sneeze in front of your laptop or mobile! And doesn’t want to have unhappy future visitors.

Having broken links or 404 error pages is not good for your site.

Google will discover it in the next crawling and drop down your site from it’s index. This means that your page won’t appear in the search results. This is not good for your business especially if your customers come through internet. Today a large percent of the buyers use search engines – Google mostly – to have a new product or service.

This above diagram shows the digital buyers growth over the years.

According to visual report by seotribunal in ecommerce:

39% of the total global traffic came from search, out of which 35% is organic and 4% paid search.

Regarding the above statistics it is understood that having a healthy web site without broken links and unreachable web pages, will help your organization or business, not only to grow faster on search criteria. But to avoid dropped from Google’s index position. Especially when you gain your place on the first page! 

Here some quick tips to avoid having broken links on your website.

1. When you need to change or remove a web page always redirect to another that have a relevant content.
2. If you use a ready CMS like WordPress or Joomla find a module or a Developer to scan your website for 404 errors.
3. If you want to change the content of an existing web page don’t change the url.

Today web sites are like living objects and they behave according to people’s needs. I know this is the difficult part but starting with basics (not having errors) it’s a good beginning. Besides :

Rome was not built in one day…