August 17, 2007

Do broken links matter?

When you place a link on your Website to another Website, you may think that is the end of it. But you could be wrong, because broken links tell people that the site may not be properly maintained or that you do not care about your users. Even if you do and most Website owners do want to look after their customers, a broken link or links to a search engine is very bad news.

A simple broken link can also affect your internal linking structure, this is all important when the site is indexed by the search engines, if they come up against too many dead ends, its not going to look good for the site and search engines do strive for perfection these days.

Google actually recommends that webmasters check for broken links and that the HTML is correct too, they go on to say that the a well maintained site provides the user with a good experience. Plus the fact that search engines do not want to send their users to sites that do not offer a good experience as it reflects badly on them.

So do broken links matter, you decide.

Source [Straight Up Search]

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