If you've found broken backlinks in your Google Search Console, it's important to address them to maintain the health and SEO performance of your website. Here's how you can remove or fix them:
Steps to Remove or Fix Broken Backlinks:
1. Identify the Source of the Broken Backlinks: Check the pages that are linking to your site and identify which ones are causing 404 errors or leading to non-existent pages.
2. Contact the Webmasters: Reach out to the webmasters or site owners of the pages containing the broken backlinks. Politely request them to either update the link with the correct URL or remove the broken link entirely.
3. Redirect the Broken Links: If the page that used to exist on your website has moved or changed, you can implement a **301 redirect** from the old URL to the new, correct URL. This will guide users and search engines to the right page.
4. Fix Internal Links: If the broken backlinks are coming from internal pages, make sure to update those links to point to valid URLs. You can easily do this through your CMS (e.g., WordPress).
5. Disavow Toxic Backlinks: If the broken backlinks are coming from spammy or low-quality websites, and you can’t get them removed, you can use Google’s **Disavow Tool** to tell Google to ignore those links. Be cautious while using this tool, as disavowing quality links can harm your SEO.
6. Monitor with Tools: Regularly check for broken backlinks using tools like **Ahrefs** or **SEMrush**, which can give you detailed reports on your backlink profile and help you identify broken or toxic links.
7. Update or Recreate Missing Pages: If the content that the backlinks originally pointed to is still valuable, consider recreating or updating the page with similar content. This way, you won’t lose the link equity.
8. Leverage Google Search Console: Use Google Search Console to track broken links and 404 errors. The console provides detailed reports and helps you stay on top of any potential issues.
9. Submit for Re-crawling: Once you’ve fixed the broken backlinks by removing, redirecting, or updating them, submit your updated pages for re-crawling in Google Search Console to ensure that Google picks up the changes quickly.
10. Prevent Future Issues: To avoid broken backlinks in the future, ensure that you maintain clean URLs, implement redirects when moving content, and regularly audit your website’s link structure.
By following these steps, you can effectively remove broken backlinks and improve your website’s SEO performance.