How to find out if a website has dead links in batches? 404 error page detection tool

Bad dead links can seriously affect the user experience of a website.

Whether a user is browsing a page of your website or an external link within a page, encountering a 404 error page can be unpleasant.

Dead links also affect page authority gained through internal and external links.

Especially when it comes to competing with your competitors, a lower page authority may have a negative impact on your website'sSEORanking has a negative impact.

This article will explain the causes of dead links, the importance of updating 404 bad links, and how to use the SEMrush site audit tool to detect dead links on your own site in bulk.

What is a 404 error page/dead link?

When a link on a website does not exist or the page cannot be found, the link is "broken", resulting in a 404 error page, a dead link.

An HTTP 404 error indicates that the webpage pointed to by the link does not exist, that is, the URL of the original webpage is invalid.This happens frequently and is unavoidable.

For example, the rules for generating webpage URLs are changed, the webpage files are renamed or moved, the import links are misspelled, etc. The original URL address cannot be accessed.

• When the web server receives a similar request, it will return a 404 status code, telling the browser that the requested resource does not exist.
• Error message: 404 NOT FOUND
• Function: Carrying the heavy responsibility of user experience and SEO optimization

There are many common causes of 404 error pages (dead links):

1. You updated the URL of the website page.
2. During the site migration, some pages were lost or renamed.
3. You may have linked to content (such as videos or documents) that has been removed from the server.
4. You may have entered the wrong URL.

Example of a 404 error page/dead link

You'll know the link is broken if you click on a link and the page returns the following error:

1. 404 Page not Found: If you see this error, the page or content has been removed from the server.
2. Bad Host: The server is unreachable or does not exist or the hostname is invalid.
3. Error code: The server violated the HTTP specification.
4. 400 Bad Request: The host server does not understand the URL on your page.
5. Timeout: The server timed out when trying to connect to the page.

Why are there 404 error pages/dead links?

Understanding how 404 error pages are formed can help you take precautions to avoid 404 dead links as much as possible.

Here are some common reasons for the formation of 404 error pages and dead links:

1. Misspelled URL: You may have misspelled the link when you set it up, or the page you are linking to may contain a misspelled word in its URL.
2. Your site's URL structure may have changed: If you've done a site migration or reordered your content structure, you'll need to set up 301 redirects to avoid errors for any links.
3. External site down: When the link to is no longer valid or the site is temporarily down, your link will appear as a dead link until you delete it or the site is back up.
4. You link to content that has been moved or deleted: The link may go directly to a file that no longer exists.
5. Bad elements in the page: There may be some bad HTML or JavaScript errors, even fromWordPress Some interference from plugins (assuming the site is built with WordPress).
6. There are network firewalls or geo-restrictions: Sometimes people outside a certain geographic area are not allowed to access a website.This often happens with videos, pictures, or other content (which may not allow international visitors to view the content in their country).

Internal link error

Bad internal linking may occur if you:

1. Changed the URL of the webpage
2. The page has been removed from your site
3. Lost pages during site migration

• Bad internal linking makes it harder for Google to crawl your site's pages.
• If the link to the page is wrong, Google will not be able to find the next page.It will also signal to Google that your site is not properly optimized, which may be detrimental to your site's SEO rankings.

External link error

These links point to an external website that no longer exists, has moved, and has not implemented any redirects.

These broken external links are bad for user experience and bad for the transmission of link weights.If you're counting on external links to gain page authority, then dead links with 404 errors won't gain weight.

404 Bad Backlinks

A backlink error occurs when another website links to a section of your website with any of the above errors (poor URL structure, misspellings, deleted content, hosting issues, etc.).

Your page loses page authority due to these 404 bad dead links, and you need to fix them to make sure they don't affect your SEO rankings.

Why dead links with 404 errors are bad for SEO?

First, dead links can be detrimental to the user experience of a website.

If a person clicks a link and gets a 404 error, he is likely to click to another page or leave the site.

If enough users do this, it can affect your bounce rate, which Google is giving youE-commerceYou will notice this when ranking your website.

404 bad dead links can also disrupt the delivery of link authority, and backlinks from well-known sites can boost your site’s page authority.

Internal linking helps in the transfer of authority within your website.For example, if you link to blog related articles, you can improve the ranking of other articles.

Finally, dead links limit Google bots that try to crawl and index your site.

The harder it is for Google to fully understand your site, the longer it will take you to rank well.

In 2014, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller stated:

“If you found a bad dead link or something, I would ask you to fix it for the user so they can fully use your site. […] It’s more like any other regular maintenance you might do for the user.”

• The impact of broken links on SEO rankings is only going to get bigger, and it’s clear that Google wants you to focus on user experience.

How can I check if my website has dead links?

• In the competitive world of SEO, you need to find and fix any website errors quickly.
• Fixing dead links should be a higher priority to ensure your user experience is not negatively impacted.

First, you can use the SEMrush Website Audit Tool to find and fix bad internal links.

How to Find Dead Links Using the SEMrush Website Audit Tool?

The SEMrush website audit tool includes over 120 different on-page and technical SEO checks, including one that highlights any linking errors.

Here are the steps to set up a SEMrush website audit:

Step 1:Create a new project.

• You need to create a project for your website to access the SEMrush website audit tool.
• In the main toolbar on the left, click "Project" → "Add New Project" ▼

Step 2:Start a SEMrush website audit

Click on the "Site Review" option on the project dashboard▼

After the SEMrush website audit tool opens, you will be prompted to configure audit settings ▼

• Through the SEMrush website audit tool settings panel, how many pages to configure the tool to audit?Which pages are ignored?And add any other access information the crawler might need.

Step 3:Analyze any dead links with the SEMrush website audit tool

Once complete, the SEMrush website review tool will return a list of issues to browse.

Use the search input to filter any question links▼

What should I do if I detect that my website has a dead link?

Step 4:fix link

Once you've detected dead links on your site, you can fix them by either dealing with updating the links, or removing them entirely.

Extended reading:

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