Understanding and Fixing Broken Backlinks: A Guide for SEO Success

Broken backlinks are links on your website that lead to non-existent pages, 404 errors, or websites that no longer exist. When a link points to a page that is unavailable or deleted, or the URL has changed, it results in a broken backlink. For SEO purposes, these links are problematic because they disrupt the user experience and reduce your site's link equity (ranking power).

Broken backlinks can harm your SEO in several ways:

1. Poor User Experience
When users click on a broken backlink, they are often taken to a "404 Not Found" page or an error page. This can be a frustrating experience, especially if they were expecting to land on applicable content or resources. When users encounter these issues, they will likely leave your site and may not return.

• What happens next? High bounce rates and reduced user engagement can negatively affect your site's performance in search rankings, as search engines tend to favor websites that provide positive user experiences.

2. Reduced Link Equity
Backlinks are one of the most critical factors in SEO, as they help increase your site's authority and ranking. External websites link to your site to share value, and those links pass on "link equity," or the SEO value of that link.

• What happens when a backlink is broken? The link equity is lost if these external links are broken or lead to non-existing pages. This reduces the amount of SEO value passed to your site, which can directly impact your search rankings.
• How does it affect SEO? Missing out on valuable link equity can hinder your website's ability to rank higher in search results, making it harder for you to compete with other sites in your industry.

3. Crawlability Issues
Search engines like Google use crawlers (bots) to explore websites and index pages. When these crawlers encounter broken backlinks during the crawl process, they cannot access the intended content, and the link becomes ineffective.

• Why is this a problem? Broken links waste the search engine's crawl budget and the number of pages a search engine bot will crawl on your site. If crawlers constantly encounter broken links, this can lead to inefficient crawling, meaning fewer pages may get indexed, reducing the visibility of your content in search results.
• Worst-case scenario: If search engines cannot properly crawl your pages, your site may even risk getting de-indexed, which would cause it to disappear from search engine results.

4. Negative Impact on Trust
A website with broken backlinks gives the impression that it is outdated, poorly maintained, or even abandoned. Search engines are designed to assess a website's overall health and credibility, and having too many broken links signals to them that your site may not be providing reliable or current content.

• How does this affect your reputation? If search engines detect a large number of broken backlinks, they may lower your site's trustworthiness, which could negatively affect your rankings.
• Trust signals: Websites with consistently high-quality, well-maintained links are seen as more authoritative and reliable. Broken links can counteract this, diminishing your site’s overall SEO performance and reputation.

Broken backlinks can occur for several reasons, and understanding these causes is important for fixing and preventing them. Here are the most common reasons why backlinks may become broken:

1. URL Changes or Website Restructuring
When a website undergoes restructuring or URL changes (e.g., moving content to new pages or changing the domain), existing backlinks pointing to the old URLs become broken.

• Example: If you’ve moved content from a page with a specific URL (e.g., /product-x) to a new structure (/new-products/product-x), any backlinks pointing to the old URL will lead to a 404 error.
• How to fix: Use 301 redirects to redirect the old URLs to the new ones. This ensures that users and search engines are directed to the updated content.

2. Content Deletion or Removal
Sometimes, content is removed from a website due to outdated information, deleted pages, or simply because it is no longer relevant. When this happens, any backlinks pointing to that content become broken.

• Example: A blog post or product page might be deleted, but external sites still link to it, resulting in a 404 error.
• How to fix: Restore the deleted content or set up a redirect to a similar or related page. Contact the referring websites to remove the broken link from external sites if the content is no longer necessary.

3. Changes in External Websites
Backlinks can become broken if the external website that links to you removes or alters the linked content. This can happen when the external site redesigns, removes pages, or rebrands.

• Example: A third-party website might change its domain name or delete a page that links back to your website, causing the link to become broken.
• How to fix: Contact the website owner and ask them to update or fix the broken link. Alternatively, you can attempt to replace the link with another relevant one.

4. Misspelled URLs
Human error can also cause broken backlinks. If someone links to your website using a misspelled URL (e.g., a typo in the link), it will lead to a broken link.

• Example: If a blogger mistypes the URL of your homepage (www.yourwebsite.com/hoempage instead of www.yourwebsite.com/homepage), the backlink will be broken.
• How to fix: Contact the site owner or webmaster and ask them to correct the misspelled URL so that it points to the correct page.

5. Expired or Moved Domain
If a domain that links to your website expires or is abandoned, all backlinks from that domain will be broken. Similarly, old links may no longer work if the domain changes ownership or is repurposed.

• Example: A website that previously linked to your site may no longer exist, or the domain may have been taken offline or replaced with a new one.
• How to fix: If possible, contact the website owner or find an alternative backlink source. You may also want to monitor your link profile and remove links from non-existent domains.

6. Server or Hosting Issues
Occasionally, broken links can arise due to temporary server outages, hosting issues, or problems with website configuration. If the target page is unavailable because of server issues, users will experience a broken link.

• Example: When linked externally, your website's server may be down or misconfigured, causing your pages to load incorrectly or return 404 errors.
• How to fix: Check your server's health and hosting configuration, ensure your website is properly maintained, and troubleshoot any hosting issues. It's important to have a reliable hosting provider to minimize downtime.

7. Changes in the Target Website’s Internal Structure
The backlink may no longer work as intended if a linked page is moved, renamed, or restructured within the target website. This is common when a website changes its structure without implementing proper redirects.

• Example: A page that was once located at www.yourwebsite.com/old-page is now located at www.yourwebsite.com/new-page, but there is no redirect from the old page to the new one.
• How to fix: Implement 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones to ensure that visitors and search engines are directed to the correct page.

Broken backlinks can take various forms, depending on the nature of the issue, causing the link to fail. Understanding the different types of broken backlinks can help you pinpoint and fix the problem more efficiently. Here are the most common types of broken backlinks:

1. 404 Errors (Page Not Found)

This is the most common type of broken backlink. When users click on a link that leads to a page that no longer exists or has been deleted, they will encounter a "404 Not Found" error.

2. Broken Redirects and Redirect Loops

Links that point to a URL with an incorrect or missing redirect can break and cause the link to fail to load.
A redirect loop occurs when a page redirects to another page, which then redirects to the original page. This creates an endless cycle and prevents users from accessing the intended content.

3. Server Errors (5xx Errors)

5xx server errors occur when a server encounters an issue preventing it from fulfilling the request. This could be due to temporary server downtime or a more serious problem with the server configuration.

4. DNS Errors (Domain Name System)

A DNS error occurs when the DNS servers cannot resolve a website's domain, leading to a link failure. This is often a temporary issue but can also indicate a deeper problem with the domain configuration.

5. Expired Domains

If a website or domain expires and is no longer active, any backlinks pointing to it will become broken. This is common with backlinks from expired or abandoned websites.

6. Changes in URL Structure

When a website's URL structure changes without proper redirection, backlinks to the old URLs become broken. This happens when a website undergoes a rebranding or restructuring.

7. Blocked Resources

Search engine crawlers or users are sometimes blocked from accessing specific resources on a page (such as images, stylesheets, or scripts), resulting in broken backlinks. This can occur if robots.txt or other access control mechanisms block certain files.

8. Misspelled URLs

When a backlink's URL contains a typo or misspelling, it leads to a broken link. This is often the result of human error when typing or copying the link.

9. Blocked or Removed Content

Sometimes, a website may remove or block content from being accessed publicly, resulting in a broken backlink. This can occur when a page is taken down, but the backlink remains intact.

10. Redirects to Irrelevant Pages

Sometimes, a website redirects traffic from a specific page to another page irrelevant to the original content, creating broken or ineffective backlinks.

11. SSL Certificate Errors
A broken backlink can occur if the site being linked to doesn't have a valid SSL certificate or the certificate has expired. This can lead to security warnings and prevent the link from loading.

12. Broken Image Links
Links to images that have been removed, renamed, or relocated without updating the URL will result in broken image links.

13. Timeout Errors
This happens when a website takes too long to load or doesn’t respond, causing a backlink to time out and fail.

Finding broken backlinks is an essential first step in fixing them. There are several methods and tools you can use to identify these issues:

1.    Google Search Console: This free tool from Google allows you to monitor your website’s performance and check for crawl errors, including broken backlinks.

2.    SEO Tools: Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and Atomseo Broken Links Checker offer backlink analysis features that help you detect broken links on your site and identify where they are located:

• Ahrefs: This tool offers a comprehensive backlink checker to help you find broken backlinks, monitor your link profile, and analyze your competitors.
• SEMrush: SEMrush's backlink audit tool helps you identify broken backlinks and disavow harmful ones to protect your site's SEO performance.
• Moz Link Explorer: Moz provides an easy-to-use platform for discovering broken backlinks, monitoring link health, and analyzing your link profile.
• Atomseo Broken Links Checker: helps monitor external links to your site, detect broken links, and find link-building opportunities by replacing competitors' dead links with yours.

3.    Manual Checking: You can also manually test your backlinks by visiting the target pages of external links. However, this method is time-consuming and impractical for larger sites.

Once you've identified broken backlinks, it's time to fix them. Here are the most effective ways to do so:

1.     Redirecting the Broken Link: One of the easiest solutions is to implement a 301 redirect from the broken URL to a relevant and active page on your site. This ensures visitors (and search engines) are redirected to a working page, preserving link equity.
2.     Contacting Webmasters: If the broken backlink points to an external website that has changed or removed the linked page, contact the webmaster and request an update to the link. Offer them the correct URL or suggest other relevant pages on your website they can link to.
3.     Replacing the Broken Link: If you have content that was previously linked to but is now outdated or removed, replace the broken link with a new, relevant link. This can be an internal link to another page on your website or an updated external resource.
4.     Removing the Broken Link: In some cases, especially if the link is irrelevant or unimportant, you should remove it entirely from your content. This is particularly helpful if there's no valid replacement or redirect.

Bad backlinks are links from spammy or low-quality sites that can harm your SEO efforts. These can result from link farms, paid link schemes, or irrelevant sites. Unlike broken backlinks, bad backlinks still lead to active pages but may negatively affect your rankings.

To handle bad backlinks:

• Disavow Them: If you find harmful backlinks pointing to your site, use Google’s Disavow Tool to tell Google to ignore those links when assessing your site's authority.
• Remove or Request Removal: Contact the website owners and ask them to remove the bad backlinks. If they're unwilling, consider disavowing them, as mentioned above.

Broken link building is an advanced SEO technique that leverages broken backlinks to your advantage. Here's how you can do it:

1.     Identify Broken Links in Your Niche: Use tools like Ahrefs or Atomseo Broken Link Checker to identify broken backlinks on high-authority sites in your industry or niche.
2.     Create Better Content: Once you find a broken link, create relevant and more valuable content than the page that was originally linked to. This increases the likelihood that web admins will want to link to your content as a replacement.
3.     Reach Out to Webmasters: Contact the web admins of sites with broken links and suggest your content as a replacement. Be polite and explain how your content can add value to their audience.
4.     Monitor Results: Track the success of your broken link-building campaigns and adjust your approach as needed.

Atomseo Broken Links Checker is a powerful tool for detecting broken links on your website and competitors' sites. It enables you to fix errors and uncover link-building opportunities by replacing broken links with functional alternatives.

How to Check for Broken Outgoing Links

1.  Generate a report in Atomseo.
2.  Receive data in an easy-to-read table format.
3.  Use filters to identify broken links and take action quickly.

How to Check External Links to Your Website

If your website has been linked from external sources, ensuring these links remain active and functional is crucial. Here's how:

1.  Gather a list of external backlinks pointing to your site.
2.  Use Atomseo’s "List Check" function to verify their status.
3.  Set up automatic monitoring to quickly detect and address broken backlinks.

Atomseo Broken Links Checker allows you to check up to 1,500 links daily for free, making it an effective tool for one-time audits and continuous backlink monitoring.

Broken backlinks are a common challenge in SEO, but they can be easily managed and fixed with the right tools and strategies. Regularly monitor your site for broken links, fix them promptly, and use broken link-building techniques to improve your SEO. Maintaining a healthy backlink profile ensures that your site continues to perform well in search engine rankings and provides a positive experience for your users.