Nothing turns a user away from a website faster than a broken link or link rot. What are broken links? They are hyperlinks or links that takes a user to a webpage that is no longer working. Instead, they are directed to a 404 Error page or a page that simply does not exist.

Broken links can occur for several reason and the most common causes are:

• When a website is restructured, and this reorganisation can cause many links to go dead. Although updating your website is a clever idea, it is important to remain mindful of broken links when doing so. Try not to change URLs when updating a website.
• Websites can also have a limit to the amount of data they can have online and as a result old data is removed and replaced by newer articles, which results in broken links to old articles.
• Changing your ISP may also influence links.
• Content filters may also be causing a link to appear broken to due various software and filters.

When building a website or updating a website, it is imperative to check for broken links and to do so constantly, as broken links do not look good to search engine robots and can have an incredibly negative effect on search engine rankings.

Broken links can be fixed by redirecting them to the updated content or removing the link and replacing them with new links.

Search Engine Optimization explained.

Keyword Assessment | Meta Data | Webmaster Tools | Google Analytics | Monthly Reporting | Robots.txt | .htaccess | Favicon | Site Map | Search Engines | Google Maps | Forms and E-mails | Footer Link | Google Search Engine | Picture Tagging | Directory Page | Social Media | Heading Tags | Indexed Pages | Robots | Sitemap | HTML Errors | Search Engine Errors | Broken Links | Pages and Content | Search Engines | Picture Tagging | Flash and iFrames | Hierarchy | Forms and Emails | Add Media | Static URLs | Descriptive URLs | Duplicate Content | Plagiarism Check | Positive Content | Negative Content | Character Coding | Downloadable Files | Optimize Graphics | Optimize Navigation | Incoming Links | Outgoing Links | Page Content | Meta Data | Rich Content | Reduce Bounce Rate | Social Media | Analyze Competitors | Website Security | 3rd Party Tracking