: Does linking to dead resources give you a SEO penalty? I've been wondering about this for a while, but cannot find any articles on it. When your website contains a dead link to a resource
I've been wondering about this for a while, but cannot find any articles on it. When your website contains a dead link to a resource that is either not there any more, or was never there to begin with, do you get penalized? As I see it, there are some different use cases, and I doubt they'll all be dealt with equally.
Linking to other web pages
Linking to resources (images, JS, CSS etc.)
Dead links to use in JS (e.g. faulty Ajax calls)
Dynamically added links to dead resources (e.g. when an Ajax call is made, and the content contains a link that is dead)
How do search engines deal with these issues? Are they neglected, and simply not followed or does the containing website get a penalty?
More posts by @Looi9037786
2 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
Google (tries to) think as a user. So imagine you're a user and click a link, expecting a result, but it turns out to be a dead link. Bummer.
Now translate that to a system useful for a bot: Some penalty if a dead link is found.
Now there are two options that can occur:
Hard end; file not there, default server/apache message showing file not found with sloppy headers. This will give you the most penalty as it is also user unfriendly.
Soft end; there is no file, but you configured your server in a way that you now display a page made by you, offering the user a better message with some options to continue (e.g.: /Home)
Having a 404 that the SE finds is not going to hurt you, it will eventually remove it from its index, but if you have a broken link pointing to a 404 then yes, it hurts seo.
If you have external links pointing to the missing links, you should 301 then to a relevant page.
Terms of Use Create Support ticket Your support tickets Stock Market News! © vmapp.org2024 All Rights reserved.