Links

Broken internal link

Update the link to the page’s new address, or remove it if the target is gone for good.

A link from your page leads to your own 404. The reader clicks into a wall, and the crawler gets proof that the site is neglected while spending a visit on a page that does not exist. A 404 on a deleted product is housekeeping; the problem is that you yourself lead to it. What usually hides here: products withdrawn without a redirect, articles whose address changed, and links in old posts nobody has opened in years. If the page has a successor, swap the link. If it is gone for good, remove it.

Id

BROKEN_INTERNAL_LINK

Fix estimate

5 min per page

Redirect loop

Break the loop by making one URL in the cycle return the page directly instead of redirecting.

The address redirects to an address that redirects back. After a dozen laps the browser shows "too many redirects", and the crawler gives up sooner. The page is in practice unreachable, though it exists in the CMS. Usually it is two rules contradicting each other: the server forces https and a plugin forces http; one rule adds a slash and another removes it; the CDN and the server each do it their own way. Find both rules and keep one.

Id

REDIRECT_LOOP

Fix estimate

8 min per page

Redirect leads to a broken page

Point the redirect at a live page, or remove links to it if the content is gone for good.

The redirect leads to a page that does not exist. Someone made sure the old address would not end in a 404 and pointed it at the new one, and then the new one vanished too. The reader takes a detour to hit a wall, and the crawler spends two visits on nothing. Usually it is a product moved twice, or a category abolished after a migration. Point the redirect at a page that works, and if nothing replaces the old one, remove the redirect and leave an honest 404 or 410.

Id

REDIRECT_TO_BROKEN

Fix estimate

6 min per page

A template link points at a page that is gone

One link the theme prints on every page (a menu or footer entry) answers an error; fix it once in the template and every page is covered.

One link in the template leads to a page that does not exist, and so the same broken link is on every page of the site. From the crawler's side that is hundreds or thousands of broken links; from the repair side it is one field in the menu, the footer or the sidebar. Usually it is a menu item for a deleted page, a link to the terms from before an address change, or a banner for a promotion that ended. Fix it once in the template and it disappears from every page at once.

Id

TEMPLATE_BROKEN_LINK

Fix estimate

5 min per page

Page gets search traffic but has no internal links

This page brings traffic from search, and at the same time no other page of the site links to it. Google found it once and keeps it in the index, but without internal links it slowly loses position, because nothing on the site says it matters. This is the cheapest improvement in the whole plan: the page already works, it only needs a link from a strong page on a related topic to stop sliding. Usually it is an old article that dropped off a list, or a landing page someone unhooked from the menu.

Id

TRAFFIC_ORPHAN

Fix estimate

10 min per page

Page references broken images or files

Fix or remove references to files that return errors — visitors see broken images and crawlers waste fetches.

Id

BROKEN_RESOURCE

Fix estimate

5 min per page

Insecure link on a secure site

Id

LINK_TO_HTTP_ON_HTTPS_SITE

Fix estimate

3 min per page

Redirect chain (2+ hops)

Point the first redirect straight at the final URL so every hop in between disappears.

The address reaches its target by a detour: through two, three or more redirects. Every hop is another request to the server before anyone sees the page, and after a few hops the crawler gives up and never arrives. Usually it is the trace of successive moves laid one on top of another: http to https, bare to www, old directory to new. Each was fine on its own; together they make a detour. Point the first redirect straight at the last address and fix the internal links so they do not start from the old one at all.

Id

REDIRECT_CHAIN

Fix estimate

5 min per page

A template link is written http on a secure site

One link the theme prints on every page is written http://; change it once in the template to https:// and every page is covered.

Id

TEMPLATE_INSECURE_LINK

Fix estimate

3 min per page

Internal links carry campaign parameters

Strip the campaign parameters from links inside the site: they report your own visitors as arriving from elsewhere and ask for a second copy of the page.

Id

URL_HAS_TRACKING_PARAMS

Fix estimate

15 min per page

Broken external link

Replace the link with a working alternative or remove it.

Id

BROKEN_EXTERNAL_LINK

Fix estimate

3 min per page

Links to a section that is not on the page

A link to #section does nothing when no element has that id; give the section the id, or remove the link.

Id

DEAD_ANCHOR_LINK

Fix estimate

3 min per page

Page buried deep in the site

Add a link from a page closer to the homepage so this one is reachable in fewer clicks.

Reaching this page takes many clicks from the homepage. Google treats depth as a signal of importance: what sits three clicks from the entrance matters more than what sits seven. Deep pages are visited less often by the crawler, refreshed more slowly and rank weaker. Usually these are products on far pages of pagination, articles in the archive, and subcategories nested in subcategories. Shorten the road: links from categories, a "featured" section, more items per list page. The pages meant to earn have to be shallow; the rest can stay where they are.

Id

DEEP_PAGE

Fires at

> 4 clicks

Fix estimate

10 min per page

Internal links marked nofollow

Drop rel="nofollow" from links to your own pages: it withholds the signal from the page you are pointing at without protecting anything.

Id

INTERNAL_LINK_NOFOLLOW

Fix estimate

3 min per page

Internal link points to a redirect

Update the link to the redirect’s final destination and save crawlers the extra hop.

A link on your page leads to an address that immediately redirects onward. It arrives, so nobody notices, but every click and every crawler visit costs an extra request to the server. For a single link that is a trifle; in a menu that sits on every page it is thousands of needless hops a day. Usually these are links written before an address change that got its redirects but never its link updates. Swap the link for the final address; keep the redirect for those with the old address in their bookmarks.

Id

INTERNAL_LINK_TO_REDIRECT

Fix estimate

3 min per page

Page linked both follow and nofollow internally

Decide whether the page should pass link signals and use the same rel treatment everywhere it is linked.

Id

LINK_RELATION_CONFLICT

Fix estimate

5 min per page

Page has very few internal links pointing to it

Very few internal links lead to this page compared with the rest of the site. Internal links are how you tell Google what matters: a page linked from the menu and ten articles matters more than one reached by a single footer link. If this page is meant to sell or draw traffic, it is getting too little signal. Link to it from related articles and from the category, in a natural place in the text; a wall of links at the bottom counts for little.

Id

LOW_LINK_SCORE

Fires at

≤ 1 internal links

Fix estimate

8 min per page

The page cites nothing outside itself

Link the sources the claims rest on, and when both an original and a write-up of it exist, link the original.

Id

NO_PRIMARY_SOURCE_LINKS

Fix estimate

20 min per page

Orphan page (in the sitemap, without internal links)

Link to this page from a relevant menu, hub, or related article so visitors and crawlers can reach it.

The page is in the sitemap, but no other page of the site leads to it. Google knows of it, because the map reports it, but treats it as a room without a door: if you yourself did not find it worth a link, why should it be in the index. Such pages index poorly and rank worse. What usually hides here: campaign landing pages, pages removed from the menu but not from the database, and articles that fell out of pagination. Decide: if the page matters, link to it from a place that fits the topic. If not, drop it from the map or delete it.

Id

ORPHAN_PAGE

Fix estimate

10 min per page