The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
January 2008, Volume 7, Issue 1

Broken Links: The Direct Path to Poor Visibility

by Christina Holmes, Search Marketing Specialist, iProspect

It annoys me to no end. And I think most people feel the same way. One minute you're cruising a website looking for some information — the next minute you're staring at: "This page cannot be displayed." ARRRGGH!!! Talk about frustrating.

The Problem

Such error pages are brought to you courtesy of a broken link, which is just a URL that doesn't resolve to show relevant content. They occur when the structure of the site is altered, or when content is moved from one page to another. The result? To start, a poor user experience. But there's more to it than that. If a visitor to your site has a bad experience, he or she is less inclined to return. Such attrition will decrease your chances of attaining visibility in the search engines.

But users aren't the only ones frustrated with broken links — search engine spiders are too. How so? Think about this way. Imagine you're exploring a new city by car. But, as you proceed, you stumble upon roads that abruptly end. They just stop. How would you feel? You might think the place was poorly maintained — or perhaps even abandoned. Most likely you'd get frustrated and leave.

Well, search engine spiders feel much the same way when they encounter broken links on a website. For them, broken links are a sign of neglect, and indicate the site's content is stale. Eventually the spider will stop exploring and simply leave. Naturally, this can cause problems. But it's more than just a matter of pages not getting crawled or indexed. It also adversely affects visibility.

The Remedy

The first step to fixing the problem is to identify your broken links, and there are several ways to do just that. For instance, Google offers a sitemap tool that will provide you with a record of the URLs that have been crawled, and the errors that have been uncovered. Although not always 100% reliable, this tool gives you an indication of the errors that can be found on your site. In addition, internal server logs may also provide this information.

The next step is to repair the broken links by either replacing the missing content, or redirecting the link to the URL where the content now resides. But you can also create a custom error page for your site. It's similar to putting up a dead-end sign — it lets the search engine spider know what's ahead, so it doesn't waste time going down that path. In addition, the custom error page includes links back to the major areas of the site, so it also improves the user experience.

The bottom line is that broken links adversely affect visibility, whether it stems from a poor user experience, or from derailing search engine spiders directly, or some combination of the two. Smart search marketers realize that repairing broken links is critical — albeit basic — to achieving visibility. Ultimately, it's the foundation upon which other SEO initiatives can be built upon.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: January 2008, Volume 7, Issue 1

Broken Links: The Direct Path to Poor Visibility

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
January 2008, Volume 7, Issue 1