How can I improve my SEO by fixing broken redirect backlinks?
Yes, it is possible to give a pretty fine boost to your overall effort in SEO - just by fixing your already existing links and applying for redirect backlinks. How? Well, let’s see.
Three Main Reasons to Reclaim Broken Links:
1. You can take full control over the process of its implementation (unlike the lion’s share of the other work, for example like content promotion);
2. Fixing broken links, you can not only boost your search rankings but acquire a plenty of other hidden benefits (e.g., better user experience);
3. You’re going to make the most of the effort you have already dealt with.
Considering that the whole process taken at scale may prove to be rather counter-intuitive and potentially hard to get managed properly, here is a brief set of actions to handle it the right way:
- Identify all broken links you’ve got on your website or blog.
- Split them by the major redirect patterns.
- Use online link building and helper tool to write redirects.
- Complete your works with redirect backlinks and have a general check up.
Identifying Broken Links
Let’s pronounce it once again - we are going to look for redirect backlinks leading the way to broken pages within your website or blog. That way, you will need to get a special report summary on them - using either Google Search Console, or any specialized online helper tool for much better and clearer data, such as Open Site Explorer (Moz), Semalt Analyzer (Semalt), or Screaming Frog SEO spider. After all, it’s only up to you to decide what framework to pick for that task.
Doing so, remember - you will also have to fix all broken internal links you have on your website or blog, as there might be a lot of URLs that have migrated through the recent years. So, all you need is preparing for a lot of manual and apparently time-consuming labor - using Google Search Console to redirect backlinks manually with .htaccess or special plugin if you’re using WordPress. Or you might as well quickly redirect a lot of links that need a fix - simply using one of the previously mentioned online helpers.
Splitting URLs By Redirect Patterns
As a user on WordPress, I was expected to identify my Old URL patterns (for example, coming as domain + year + month + post name.html), and New URL patterns (e.g., domain + post name). Putting in in plain English, you will need to write a special instruction for Google’s crawling bots telling them about these or any other permanent changes - both in URL itself, and HTML page code (otherwise, work on 301 redirects).
Writing Redirects
As for me, I used Permalink Helper Tools to work with the code URLs. Everything should be self-explanatory there, but remember to have the source URL pattern as the URLs that start with your domain, followed with numbers and a slash, to be ended with the variable age from WordPress, and note in HTML that escapes the period. Remember that the variable should always be started and ended with a slash.
Complete Redirect Backlinks and Check Them
To complete the procedure, simply embed your .htaccess file with the code through FTP connection with your server. Caution - make sure everything is in place. I mean that governing access to your website or blog with. Htaccess, if something goes wrong you might as well crash everything - even with a slightly faulty code. That way, all you need is to split your redirect into Source and Target, run a check-up procedure with a crawler tool - and you’re done!
Hint: the same procedure could be applied to broken internal links as well. Of course, ideally they should not pass through any redirects, but unfortunately, it’s not always feasible. Remember - having a redirect is much better than 404.
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