Table of Contents
What is Link Rot?
What Causes of Link Rot?
Why Link Rot is Bad for SEO and Authority
The Effect of 404 Errors on User Experience
Identifying Link Rot
How to Prevent and Fix Link Rot
Have you ever clicked on a link only to be redirected to a 404 Page Not Found Error? That my friends, is a broken link. Link rot is a type of broken link, and like any broken link, it can damage your website’s reputation from an SEO standpoint.
What is Link Rot?
Link rot is the gradual, non-functioning of hyperlinks that result in those links becoming broken. This typically occurs when the destination URL changes, is deleted or is otherwise unavailable.
What Causes Link Rot?
Links break for all sorts of reasons. Here is what often goes wrong.
Hosting and Domain Expirations
Websites shut down unexpectedly. This could be temporary or permanent. For example, if a company goes out of business, the hosting and domain name registration will expire and not get renewed. Or, a hosting plan or domain registration is unable to auto-renew because the credit card on file with the hosting and/or domain registration provider has expired, and the website owner fails to update that information.
URL Changes
Another circumstance under which link rot can occur is when a webmaster changes a web page URL (to which web links are pointing) and forgets to set up a 301 redirect.
Content Deletion or Paywalls
Sometimes web pages, including blog posts, are intentionally deleted, perhaps because a product or service is no longer offered. Or, web pages become locked behind a paywall for subscribers.
Why Link Rot is Bad for SEO and Authority
Link rot can hurt your website’s performance in the organic search results. That is because link rot degrades user experience and your website’s credibility, increasing bounce rate, while wasting crawl budget and diminishing link equity.
The Effect of 404 Errors on User Experience
When users encounter a 404 Page Not Found Error, that usually leads to a bounce. That is because a website full of dead links appears untrustworthy as users leave frustrated, and your website’s credibility goes down.
Erosion of Trust and Credibility
Link rot has a negative impact on trust and credibility because it can indicate that a website falls short of Google’s principle of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness). Broken or dead links make your website look outdated and/or neglected. Over time, this erodes your brand.
Loss of Valuable Backlink Equity
Backlinks are important to SEO. When they point to missing pages on your website, link equity (or link juice) leaks out, as it does not pass through a 404 error page. As such, search engines ignore it. Thus, you should regularly check your backlink profile because link rot can result in lost rankings.
Identifying Link Rot
Spotting link rot early and doing something about it can save you from future SEO headaches. Use online tools regularly to help find and fix them is a good practice.
Using Google Search Console
Google Search Console is free tool that can help you to identify which URLs are an issue. You can find crawl errors, including 404s.
Link Checking Tools
Here are a few online link checking tools.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Crawls up to 500 URLs for free. Great for smaller websites. It flags all dead external links.
- Ahrefs or SEMrush: This is a paid subscription service, but worth it for SEO professionals who need to find broken links.
- Moz Pro: Moz Pro is a paid subscription service that among other things, can check for broken links via its Site Crawl tool.
How to Prevent and Fix Link Rot
While you may not be able to prevent all link rot, there are steps you can take to mitigate it.
Implementing Redirects
Setting up 301 redirects can be an effective way to combat link rot. Doing so can help to preserve SEO value.
Choosing Authoritative, Stable Sources
Link to well-established, authoritative websites, including government and educational websites such as .gov and .edu.
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