Ubersuggest's Site Audit tool is a powerful feature designed to help website owners identify and rectify SEO issues. One of the critical reports generated by this tool is the Broken URL report. This article aims to guide beginner SEOs on understanding, identifying, and resolving broken link issues using Ubersuggest.

What is a Broken Link?

A broken or dead link is a link on a website that no longer works. It typically leads users to a 404 error page, indicating that the original content is no longer available.

Why Are Broken Links Bad for SEO?

User Experience: Broken links lead to poor user experience. When visitors encounter them, they might get frustrated and leave your site.
Search Engine Ranking: Search engines, like Google, consider a website's quality when determining its ranking. Multiple broken links can indicate a neglected site, potentially affecting its SEO ranking.

How to Identify Broken Links Using Ubersuggest?

Ubersuggest inspects every URL on your site. Any URL that returns a 404 error is counted as a broken link and displayed in the site audit report.

To verify if a reported URL is indeed broken:

Follow the URL.
Check if it leads to content or a 404-error page.
If it leads to a 404 error page, it's a broken link that needs fixing.

How to Fix Broken Links?

If the URL leads to a 404 page, fix the link or set up a 301 redirect to a relevant page. To learn how to set up 301 redirects and how they can help your website’s SEO, please review his article from Neil’s blog.

If the URL works but is still reported as broken, it might be a false positive.

This is common with Shopify websites since Shopify blocks Ubersuggest crawlers. In this case, you can ignore the broken link report for Shopify sites. Ubersuggest engineers are working on resolving this issue. Search Engines like Google will not have problems crawling Shopify websites.
If your website uses another CMS and faces this issue, it might be due to Ubersuggest crawlers being blocked by your website's security system (firewall).

In such cases:

Add Ubersuggest's IPs and crawler to your security system (firewall) whitelist.
Recrawl your website using the Ubersuggest Site Audit tool.

Locating Broken Links on Your Website

Open the Ubersuggest Site Audit tool and access the "SEO ISSUES DISCOVERED" table.

Open the "Broken Links" issue.

View the table for the number of broken links on each page. To see specific broken links on a page, click the "Links" dropdown button next to the "Page URL" column.

The list will display the "Broken Link" under the "Broken Destination URL" column. If there's anchor text for this URL, it will appear under the "Anchor Text" column.

The broken link (Broken Destination URL) will be located on the page listed under “Page URL.” The link can be found on this page by clicking the anchor text in the content.