How to Find and Fix Broken Links in WordPress

Broken links are a common problem for WordPress users, which badly impacts the user experience and hurts your Website’s SEO ranking. These links often happen because of permalink issues, leading to “404: Not Found” errors. Such errors make your site look unprofessional and stop search engines from crawling it properly. 

Search engines may also penalize websites with too many broken links, which reduces their visibility in search results. Fixing broken links is important to keep your site running well and ranking higher.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to fix broken links WordPress. This will improve both user experience and search engine visibility.

Finding and Fixing Broken Links in WordPress

While working with WordPress, you may encounter errors like “404: Not Found”, “The Link You Followed Has Expired“, etc., which can negatively impact user experience and SEO. Therefore, identifying and fixing these errors on your WordPress website is crucial for maintaining its performance and SEO.

You can find broken links using various methods. These include installing a reliable WordPress plugin, using third-party online tools, or manually inspecting links through the WordPress editor. Each method has its advantages, so choose the one that best fits your workflow and site requirements.

Once you’ve found the broken links, promptly update, replace, or remove them to ensure smooth navigation for your visitors and improve search engine rankings.

Let’s explore each method one by one to fix broken links WordPress.

Fix Broken Links Using WordPress Plugin

Plugins are an easy and efficient way to find and fix broken links on your WordPress site. WordPress offers a very handy plugin named Broken Link Checker that can be used to find and fix broken links:

Step 1: Install Broken Link Checker

Login to your website, navigate to Plugins, click Add New Plugin, type “Broken Link Checker” in the search bar, and click on the Install Now button:

You can install any of the above-given plugins. Once installed, click the Activate button to enable the plugin on your site.

Step 2: Fix Broken Links WordPress Plugin

Now navigate to the Link Checker plugin in the WordPress dashboard menu to automatically scan your site for broken links. The following screenshot demonstrates all links are working fine:

If you have a broken link, the Link Checker plugin lets you easily edit or remove it.

Step 3: Monitor Regularly

The Link Checker plugin continues to monitor your site for new broken links automatically. You must check the Link Checker dashboard regularly to stay on top of any new issues.

Manually Inspect Links via the WordPress Editor

Another way to fix broken links in WordPress is by manually inspecting the links through the WordPress editor. This process is time-consuming and requires significant manual effort. It involves reviewing pages, posts, menus, and other sections of your site individually to identify and update broken links. This method is useful for smaller websites or specific areas where automated tools may not be necessary. Here’s a stepwise guide to fix broken links in WordPress manually:

Step 1: Inspect Blog Posts

Log in to your WordPress dashboard and check the links in your blog posts. Pay special attention to older posts to make sure the links still work. Older content often has broken links because the external pages they point to might no longer exist.

Step 2: Inspect Menus

Broken menu links can also badly impact the user experience. To avoid this, navigate to Appearance > Menus, inspect all links in your navigation menu, and update them (if needed) to fix the broken links:

Step 3: Inspect Footer Links

Footer links can also be broken, so it’s important to check them carefully. These links often include important pages like your contact information, privacy policy, or terms of service. Go to your site’s footer section and click on each link to make sure they work correctly:

If any link is broken, update or fix it to ensure visitors can easily access these essential pages. Regularly reviewing footer links helps maintain a smooth user experience.

Fix Broken Links Using Online Tools

To find broken links on your website, you can use tools like Google Search Console or third-party options such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Dead Link Checker. These tools help us scan our entire website, just like a search engine would, and detect any links that no longer work. They provide a list of broken links along with their locations, making it easy for you to fix them. By regularly using these tools, you can ensure that all links on your site are working properly, which helps improve the user experience and your site’s SEO. 

Good Practices for Managing Links in WordPress

To ensure a better user experience and maintain strong SEO performance, follow these practices:

• Check your site regularly to catch and fix broken links early.
• Link to your site’s content whenever possible to reduce dependence on external sites.
• Update older posts and pages to keep links functional and relevant.
• Replace broken links with new, correct URLs.
• If no replacement is available, delete the broken link to improve the user experience.
• Use a plugin like Redirection to guide users to a working page if the original link is broken.

This is how you can find and fix broken links in WordPress.

Conclusion

Broken links are a common issue for WordPress users that can harm your site’s user experience and SEO ranking. By identifying and fixing broken links, you can ensure smooth navigation for your visitors and maintain search engine visibility. In this article, we explored several effective methods to tackle broken links, including using plugins like Broken Link Checker, manually inspecting links, and using online tools like Google Search Console. You can keep your site running optimally by following practices like regular audits, updating outdated content, and replacing or removing broken links promptly.

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