As a website owner or digital marketer, you know how crucial it is to maintain a website that functions flawlessly. One of the most common issues that website owners encounter is broken links. Broken links are links that lead to non-existent pages or web content, leading to 404 error pages. Broken links not only hurt the user experience but also negatively affect your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts.
Fortunately, there are tools available to help identify broken links on your website, and one such tool is Screaming Frog. In this article, we will discuss how to use Screaming Frog to find broken links on your website and take steps to fix them.
What is Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog is a web crawling tool that can analyse a website’s structure, find broken links, audit redirects, and identify duplicate content. The tool can help you quickly analyse your website’s technical SEO health and identify issues that need attention.
How to Find Broken Links in Screaming Frog?
Before we dive into finding broken links in Screaming Frog, let’s first understand how to set up the tool to crawl your website. Once you have installed Screaming Frog, follow these steps to set up a website crawl:
- Open Screaming Frog and enter the website URL you want to crawl in the top search bar.
- Click on the “Start” button to begin the crawl.
- Screaming Frog will begin crawling your website, and you can see the progress in real-time.
- Once the crawl is complete, you will see a list of URLs on your website in the left-hand panel.
- Click on the “Response Codes” tab to view a list of response codes for each URL.
- Look for the 404 response code, which indicates broken links on your website.
- To view the broken link, click on the URL in the list, and the broken link will be highlighted in red.
- You can export the list of broken links by clicking on “Export” and selecting the appropriate file format.
How to Fix Broken Links?
Now that you have identified broken links on your website using Screaming Frog, it’s time to take steps to fix them. Here are some tips to help you fix broken links on your website:
- Update or replace the broken link with a working link.
- Redirect the broken link to a relevant page on your website using a 301 redirect.
- Remove the broken link if it’s no longer relevant.
- Use custom 404 error pages that provide helpful information to users.
Best Practices for Maintaining Your Website’s Links
Here are some best practices that can help you maintain your website’s links and avoid broken links:
- Regularly monitor your website for broken links using tools like Screaming Frog.
- Keep your website’s content up to date, and remove outdated content.
- Use descriptive and relevant anchor text for your links.
- Avoid using link shorteners, which can break links over time.
Conclusion
In conclusion, broken links can negatively impact your website’s user experience and SEO efforts. Fortunately, tools like Screaming Frog can help you quickly identify and fix broken links on your website. By regularly monitoring your website for broken links and following best practices, you can maintain a website that functions flawlessly and provides an excellent user experience.