During the existence of the site, sooner or later, a problem like broken links will appear on it. They lead to a page, image, file or other site that no longer exists. What is their danger, how to check them, how often to do it? Read about it in our article.
Reasons for education
Broken links appear on sites for various reasons.
The main one is the complete removal of a file or page from the network or from your site. If the page has lost its relevance or the image has been deleted from the database, the link to it will become invalid.
The page address itself changes a little less often, for example, due to renaming of material or site. The link in this case may also cease to be valid.
Well, the most common reason is a common mistake when writing url. This happens if a person prescribes them manually or does not fully copy them. Therefore, it is very important to check all links immediately after they are added.
Why you need to control it
The danger of broken links is that, not having received the necessary information, the visitor will simply leave the site. As a result, the behavioral factor worsens, as does the position of the site in search engines. In general, the promotion of the project will be significantly more difficult. Therefore, checking broken links is an important part of the site administration work.
Manual repair
You can work with broken links without software. If your site is small, then it will be enough for you to go through the pages and check all the hyperlinks for their performance. If you are careful and do not miss a single one, this method will be the most reliable. It allows you to accurately determine whether links are accessible to ordinary users.
But this method also has a significant drawback. It can take several hours, but you won’t be able to use it on a large project, since you are guaranteed to miss some links or even entire sections. Therefore, it is better to use hardware.
Online services
If you do not want to install anything on your computer, then you can use the service for checking broken links on the Internet. There are many such sites, it is enough to indicate the address of your project on them so that the service gives you all the broken links and their location. These services include Broken Link Checker, Usabilla, Free Link Checker and others. Checking broken links online is quite convenient. Services are easy to use, but their functionality is often very limited.
Check broken links on sites based on Wordpress
If you are the owner of a site running Wordpress, then it will not be difficult to control broken links. Checking a Wordpress site for broken links can be done using plugins installed on the resource. For example, such a plugin is Broken Link Checker.
To work with it, you should go along the path "Options - Check Links - Advanced". In the window that appears, the option "Check all pages" will be available. If you click on it, the plug-in will start automatic operation, you just have to wait until the operation is completed. Then broken links will appear in the General window, you only need to analyze them and fix them.
Most of these plugins not only allow you to quickly search, but also immediately replace broken links, and if necessary, delete them. The only drawback of such services is that they require a lot of resources, which is why the site can significantly slow down. Therefore, they should be used with caution.
Check with Yandex and Google
If you use Yandex.Webmaster, you can find broken links using the tools of this service. You can do this in the "Site Indexing" menu , in the "Excluded Pages" section, under "HTTP Status: Resource Not Found (404)". All invalid links with this error will appear in the window. It will also show on which pages they are placed. Directly from the webmaster, you can follow the links and fix them.
You can do the same in the Google webmaster in the "Status / Scan Errors" section.
Unfortunately, not all broken links are found by these services; working with them is not very convenient.
Programs on the computer to check
Errors can be checked not only online, but also with the help of special programs. The most popular broken link checker is Xenu Link Sleuth. It is abandoned by the developers and has not been updated for a very long time, but it copes with its tasks perfectly.
Instructions for working with the Xenu program
If you need to check the site for broken links, Xenu will do this very well.
There is no need to customize the program specifically. Simply open the File menu and select Check Url, or simply click on the blank sheet icon in the toolbar. In the window that opens, paste the link to the main page of your site.
All site URLs will be sorted. At the top of the list will be broken links highlighted in red, and at the bottom will be broken links marked in green. Sometimes links to service pages are marked in red. You can ignore them. And with the rest you will need to work separately.
To get the most complete information about a broken link, right-click on it and select Url properties. In the window that opens, the title of the link will be shown, as well as the pages on which it is used.
If Xenu checks for broken links using Xenu, keep in mind that it can sometimes be wrong. If the program does not wait for a response from url, it will mark it as broken with the status no connection. When sorting such links, they are placed at the very top, they will need to be checked manually.
You will have to remove and modify the found broken links with your hands. There are no services or programs for such purposes, especially since it is simply impossible - the links will need to be entered yourself.
What is nice, the program is distributed Xenu for free. True, in case of errors there will be no one to turn to.
Working with Linkoskop
Linkoscop allows you to evaluate internal linking. It performs many functions, including checking where all the links on the site lead, that is, doing what we need. This program is paid, costs 450 rubles for a license for five years. You can use it for free for three days. Some people point out that Linkoscop is worse at finding broken links than Xenu. Often she does not find them at all or determines only a small number.
What control method should you choose
Each of the above methods has its advantages and disadvantages, so you need to apply them in different cases.
The manual method is suitable for owners of small sites with a small number of pages. The method is quite reliable and allows you to 100% identify broken links, but it requires a lot of painstaking work.
Online verification is a convenient and compact option that does not take up space on the computer and is suitable for checking the site anywhere, and not just on your home PC.
Checking a site for broken links by programs is a less mobile, but at the same time very reliable way. In addition, the programs have some additional features that help to better customize the site.
Checking with plugins is the most convenient way for those who have sites located on WordPress CMS.
How often do you need to monitor
If you regularly update information on the site and constantly add new links, then you should definitely check them. It is also very important to control broken links if your site has been around for a long time. Some of them, especially external ones, may become obsolete.
Check broken links about once a month. You don’t need to do this more often, and with rarer checks, you may lose a significant part of the project visitors. By the way, to save website resources on Wordpresse, you can install the Broken Link Checker plugin once every 30 days, only for the duration of the check. If the plugin is standing constantly, then it will unnecessarily load the site.
Check broken links 1C
Broken links can occur not only on sites, but also in the 1C system. If the infobase is damaged, then some objects may be lost, then links to them get the form <Object not found> 77: 805f000c291e652311e0ad237dea6181).
Broken links in 1C arise for the following reasons:
- due to the actions of users who have the right to delete or mark the removal of objects without reference integrity control (it is important to close such opportunities);
- due to the use of handlers that delete objects incorrectly;
- due to the exchange between different databases.
If you need to check for broken links 1C 8.2, it can be done during testing, if you check the box "Check referential integrity of the infobase". Here you can immediately clear these links, but the original state of the database will not be returned, so the changes made to it will disappear from the account.
If you have a fresh backup of the database, then you can try to restore the links. To date, there are many treatments and codes for 1C-programmers. They work in different ways, but they all do the same thing. It is important that an experienced programmer checks the processing and determines that it does not contain errors and does not harm the database even more.
Conclusion
Elimination of broken links both on sites and in 1C program is a very important task, which in no case should be neglected. Then your sites and databases will be relevant and understandable to users.