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Broken Outbound Content
Broken Outbound Content

What is broken outbound content, why is it bad and how to fix it.

Florian avatar
Written by Florian
Updated over a week ago

What is the issue?

Linking to broken outbound content impacts usability as visitors expect to be taken to a new page yet end up falling on a 404 page that creates a frustrating experience. Broken links also indicate that a domain is not properly maintained, and may affect your website's credibility.

How to fix

Broken outbound content usually occurs when the content has been deleted by the outbound website's owner. To fix the problem, either delete the link or find an alternative source to link to.

  1. The column “incoming links and references” show how many links there are to the broken outbound content.

  2. To view the complete list, click on the number and a new window will open.

  3. Look at the column “anchor text” to find where the link is on the page. You can also "View Source" by right-clicking on the page to discover where the broken link is hiding.

  4. Either you or your developer can update the link to resolve the issue.

If a page containing a broken outbound link receives a high amount of traffic, there's a higher chance of visitors clicking on the broken outbound link. Use Google Analytics data to see which pages containing a broken outbound link receive the highest amount of traffic. These should be fixed first to avoid user frustration. Learn more in this article.

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