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Broken Links

FigureA broken link breaks the "crawl path." Googlebot hits a wall (404) and stops, wasting crawl budget and losing link equity.

What are Broken Links?

Broken links are the "potholes" of the internet. You click a link expecting a resource, and you get an error. They can be internal (links to your own pages) or external (links to other websites).

Why it Matters for SEO

1. User Experience (UX) Rot

Nothing frustrates a user faster than clicking a link and getting a 404. It makes your site look neglected and unprofessional. Users usually leave immediately.

2. Crawl Budget Waste

When Googlebot hits a broken link, it stops dead. It wasted resources trying to crawl a page that doesn't exist. If your site is full of them, Google may crawl your site less frequently.

3. PageRank Dead Ends

Links pass authority. If you link to a broken page, that authority flows into a black hole instead of circulating to other valuable pages on your site.

Common Causes

  • Typos: A simple spelling error in the HTML (href="contactt") breaks the link.
  • Deleted Content: You removed an old blog post but forgot to remove the 50 links pointing to it.
  • URL Changes: You renamed a URL but didn't set up a 301 redirect.
  • External Rot: You linked to a cool article on CNN three years ago, but they moved or deleted it.

How to Fix

  1. Update: Fix the typo or point the link to the correct new URL.
  2. Remove: If the linked content is gone forever, simply remove the link (unlink the text).
  3. Redirect: If the destination URL changed, set up a 301 redirect at the source so the link works automatically.

How to Audit with Mygom

Our scanner crawls every <a> tag on your page and checks the response code of the destination. Any link returning 4xx (Client Error) or 5xx (Server Error) is flagged for immediate repair.