In the pursuit of blogging, building the best blog, getting ranked high with Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc we build links. Links that take you to another blog which links to another blog and so forth until you hit a dead link. You might also have links from one part of your blog to another so want to ensure that all of these links actually work and wont return a page cannot be displayed error.  It is often hard to pinpoint deadlinks with the naked eye and dead links happen when a page, a post, an image is deleted or moved or the permalink structure is changing or the site is just simply down or not in existence anymore. So let's go on a Hunt for Dead Links with a Dead Link Checker.

Hunt for Dead Links - Dead Link Checker(s) to Use

Why should you Hunt for Dead Links and Eliminate Them?

1. Readability

Clicking on a dead link can mean your readers can end up on error pages or being redirected to irrelevant content. This can lead to reader frustration and give the impression that your blog is old and not updated.

2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search engines frown upon sites that have many dead links and if they find pages or posts that cached / indexed on their database it may be removed or it could also cause penalties (they could possibly just stop indexing your site altogether)

3. You are Losing Money

If you are like me and have many links which point to affiliate offers then you want to constantly make sure that those links are still valid because affiliate programs tend to change affiliate links with or without notice especially links to special offers that are only offered for a limited time.  So if you have a great post or review on a excellent product or service and in that review post you have affiliate links you want to make sure they work otherwise you will lose money when people try to click to sign up for that product or service.

So how do you detect dead links on your blog ?

Well you start by going from page to page and post to post and manually click on every link you can....... HAHAHA.. just playing. If you got about 63 posts or more like I do at this moment you would not want to go through every single page or post and be clicking on them all. You need a Dead Link Checker.  There are many link-checking tools available online and many of them are FREE. Xenu's Link Sleuth is very highly regarded but it is also very outdated software. I've also used the free versions of Dead-links.com (but it only checks to a shallow depth). I personally use a Chrome Plugin called Check my Links it's really cool as it will check links as you are looking at the page and give you on-page report.  How about a WordPress plugin called Broken Link Checker which notifies you when there a broken links on pages and posts?

The Wordpress Codex suggests try some of these:

Link Valet

W3C Free Link Checker

AnyBrowser's Link Checker

HTML Help Valet Link Checker

NetMechanic's Link Check

 

What To Do When You Find A Dead Link ?

1. Fix or Update the Link

If the Link is simply wrong or pointing to the wrong place, just update it so that it works!

2. Delete the Link

If the Link is Dead and there's no correct or updated one then you can delete the link. I usually add a note to say that I've done this . Sometimes I also update it with new links so that the post is still relevant.

3. Delete the Post

If the whole post's main point is to link to another post then a dead link makes this type of post obsolete so consider deleting them rather than updating.

If you know of any other awesome dead link checkers that you use please be sure to comment and share what has worked for you and your blog or site.