Dead Links Can be Detrimental

There are various opinions prevailing about dead links in a website. Dead links are nothing but a link that does not land successfully in the linked page because the linked page has been moved or it has not been properly linked due to a typo or the page has been deleted, etc. In all these situations, your website visitors will get a 404 – Page cannot be displayed error. Some web masters opine that it only affects the usability of the website whereas others believe that its effect does not just stop with the usability of the website but it also extends to affect the pagerank and the sites popularity.The predominant view is that it does affect the rankings. Some even feel that if dead links are present in a new website then the site may not be indexed by the search engines. However, this needs some evidence to come to that conclusion.

When search engines crawl your website it will parse through all the pages and when it lands in dead links then you will start accumulating negative scoring. All your efforts in building that website for months together will go in vain because of minor mistakes like this. Often people tend to skip this step and forget to check the site for dead links because it does not look that serious. All that it takes is a simple check on all the links. If your website is a basic website with just a few pages then it is rather easier to check all the pages manually. But if you have hundreds of pages and a complex architecture then it becomes a difficult task. However, there are number of tools that are available in the market that will help you check for broken links.

Make sure to check your website for dead links after it is uploaded to the server. Normally, during the development phase the site will be constructed in the local server and the development team might even check for dead links when the site is still offline but it is important to check it once again when it is uploaded to the actual server where it will reside permanently. You will certainly not regret this additional effort. Some webmasters even add a special note to their website visitors to report if there are any broken links.

Dead links need not necessarily reside in your website, it may also be found outside your website. In your link building efforts you might have added a page of link directory or a resources page and exchanged links with other websites. You have no control over these websites and you will not know whether those websites are still live or whether they have been removed. If any of the websites are moved from their specified location or if the domains expire, then it will also lead broken links. So it is important to perform regular checks for broken or dead links in your website so that you can clean up your website. This will not only make your site a credible site but it will save you from losing your rankings in search engines.

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