What is Link Rot?
Link rot refers to the phenomenon where hyperlinks (outbound links) to other websites on your website become obsolete or inaccessible over time.
This can happen when the resource that your website was originally pointing to is moved to a new address or becomes permanently unavailable.
As a result, the link on your website to this resource becomes broken, dead, or orphaned, and is unable to properly connect users to the intended content.
When a user clicks on that link on your website that has suffered from link rot, they may encounter a "404 error" or a "page not found" message, which can be frustrating and lead to a negative user experience.
FYI: Link rot is also known as Link death, Link decay, Reference rot, or Reference decay.
Reasons for Link Rot
There are several reasons for link rot:
Content removal: Web pages or resources your website is linking to may be removed or deleted, causing the links to become broken.
Website restructuring: Websites may undergo structural changes, such as updates to URL structures or the consolidation of pages, which can cause links to break.
Domain name changes: Websites may change their domain names - causing the links pointing to their old domain names to break on your website.
Expiration of domain name registrations: If the domain name that your website is pointing to is not renewed in a timely manner, the links may no longer work.
Dynamic page content: Links pointing to dynamic content, such as search results or dynamically generated pages, may become outdated or broken as the content changes over time. So it will result in link rot.
The Phenomena of Link Rot
The link rot phenomenon can occur in two ways:
The natural disappearance of links
Links on your website can break over time. This can happen when other websites that you link to are changed or taken down.
For example, if another website deletes a web page, any links from your site to that page will break. Or if another website changes its URL for a page, your old links to that content will stop working.
If readers click on one of these broken links on your site, they'll get an error message saying the page is not found. The content they were hoping to access is gone.
A gradual reduction of link power
When you add new content to your website, your older content can get buried. As your site grows, some of those older pages might end up deeper in your website's structure or menus.
This means those older pages become less visible. Fewer visitors will find and click on the links on those pages over time.
So the links from those older, more buried pages start to lose their "power" or authority. Since fewer people see and use those links, search engines pay less attention to them too.
The links are still there, but they are rotting - their power is slowly decreasing. Those links have less ability to pass value or help with search rankings.
Difference Between Link Rot and Broken Links
Link rot and broken links are related concepts but have some differences:
Link rot refers to the gradual decay or deterioration of web pages’ links over time, leading to the eventual loss of access to the content.
This decay can happen due to several reasons such as changes in domain names or file locations, outdated content, or technical issues.
On the other hand, a broken link is a link on your website that leads to a web page or resource that is no longer available or accessible.
Broken links can occur due to various reasons such as the deletion of the page, changes to the URL structure, or server issues.
In other words, link rot is a gradual process that leads to the eventual loss of access to content, while broken links are links that have already lost access to their intended content.
Put simply, several broken links accumulated over time lead to link rot.
How to Find and Fix Link Rot on Your Website?
Here are some steps you can take:
Regularly Check Your Website
Regularly check your website to make sure all links are functioning correctly. You can use various tools such as Screaming Frog to scan your website and identify any broken links.
Here is how you can do this:
Download and install Screaming Frog on your computer.
Launch Screaming Frog and enter the website URL you want to crawl in the search bar.
Click on the "Start" button to begin crawling the website.
Once the crawl is complete, click on the "Response Codes" tab, located in the bottom section of the screen.
Click on the "Client Error (4xx)" filter to view all the broken links on your website.
You can export the list of broken links to a CSV file by clicking on the "Export" button.
To identify the source of broken links, you can use the inlinks report provided by Screaming Frog. This report can be exported and analyzed to determine where the broken links are originating from.
Replace Broken Links
Once you find any broken links on your site, you need to fix them. There are two main ways to do that:
Update the broken links to point to other helpful web pages instead. That way the links still work and provide useful information.
Or completely remove the rotten links from your site if there are no good replacement pages to link to. This cleans up the broken links so visitors don't run into frustrating errors.
Either way, don't leave broken links on your site. Check periodically to spot them, and then swap them out for working links or take them down.
Keep Your Content Up-to-Date
Refreshing your website content often can help stop link rot in the first place.
You should:
Add new content regularly
Remove old, outdated information
Check all the links pointing to other sites every month
That way, you can catch if any links are broken before your visitors even see them.
If you do find dead links:
Take them down right away
Replace them with links to other helpful, working web pages
By keeping your site's content and links fresh and up-to-date, you make sure visitors can easily get the information they want.
Conclusion
Links on your website can break over time. This is called link rot. When readers click on a rotten link, they'll get an error message saying the page was not found. This is frustrating for visitors.
Catching and fixing rotten links keeps your site navigation flowing smoothly for your visitors. It prevents those 404 "page not found" dead ends.
To find and fix link rot on your website, you can regularly check your website to identify broken links, and then take action to update or remove them.