Broken Links

[Sarah1203]

Hi everyone. I have just had my site review and it has an incredible number of broken links. Is this something I could fix myself and if so how do I do it please?


Other things to do... apparently.

• Check all 67 pages (including key pages and main product pages, research relevant keywords and optimise for SEO

Re-write 52 blog posts, research relevant keywords and optimise for SEO

• Additional works (grouped together)
  • Improve navigation
  • Update checkout pages
    • Remove/update any conflicting information.
    • Investigate streamlining the process if possible.
  • Improve site speed
  • Direct broken links to custom 404 page until fixed (subject to being able to do this within SellerDeck)
  • Update contact page
    • Add a contact form and add direct links to any email addresses and phone numbers.
  • Add opt-in form to main site
  • Check headings are consistent in format
  • Update About page
  • Update testimonials page
    • Add 47 new testimonials and improve page layout

[Buzby]

Just scanned your website quickly and you have hundreds of broken links.

Here are just some of them.

Most of them seem to be regarding a Blog.

[Sarah1203]

Thank you.. so do you know how I fix them please?

[Buzby]

Sorry, I don't know other than look at your blog as this seems to be where the issue is.

[Mike Hughes]

Download Xenu Link Sleuth and run it on your site. it will generate a report identifying all the broken links on your site AND the page(s) on which the broken link sits.

For example the first broken link on Jason's list is here:

https://www.westcountrylupins.co.uk/...borescens.html error code: 404 (not found), linked from page(s): https://www.westcountrylupins.co.uk/...-vouchers.html

I can't find any way to post the full link text in the forum without it being shortened for display but if you hover over the link or click it you'll be able to see the full link address.

Then all you have to do is find the source for the relevant page and change your links to what they should be.

[Mike Hughes]

And in the case above the offending link is in your mega menu for Perenials > Fuchsia.

For some reason your gift vouchers page has a different link for that than the rest of your site which has it linking to https://www.westcountrylupins.co.uk/...erennials.html

Maybe that page was manually created sometime in the past.

[Mike Hughes]

So, this is a bit of an odd one. The gift vouchers page with the bad link isn't your main one, but seems to be an old page, created using an older version of sellerdeck.

Presumably at some stage you changed the page name from westcountry-nurseries-gift-vouchers to garden-centre-gift-vouchers and the page with the old name is still on the server. It is still linked to somewhere on your site (presumably in your blog somewhere) but you can safely delete the old page from the server. This will create a new broken link on the page that links to it but you'll want to update that anyway.

Mike

[Sarah1203]

Hello again guys. Many thanks for all the help so far.

I have removed I think all the blogs with broken links and a few on the front page of my website.

I tried to download Xenu Link Sleuth to see how many more there are but my computer malwarebytes blocked it. Is there another piece of software I could use to scan the site again?

I think there may be some links here which don't work like email at the bottom but I cannot find where it is (in RES menu?) Privacy Policy | Westcountry Nurseries (westcountrylupins.co.uk)

Also in Plant nursery shop with categories down the side should I cut all the items I no longer sell? Not sure if that counts as a broken link?

Thanks again

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Sarah,

I've run Xenu on your site again and it's currently reporting 1418 broken links.

A lot of these are from / to blog pages so they probably still need a bit of work.

I've used xenu link sleuth for years without any problems. I think Screaming Frog do a good one too, but their free option only checks 500 urls versus the 2,442 on your site so you could try that and see how you get on with it before deciding if its worth paying for it or not.

Quite a few of your broken links are still coming from this page: https://www.westcountrylupins.co.uk/...-vouchers.html

[Sarah1203]

OMG Mike I can't believe it. I deleted pages of blogs. Is there some coding in the background that doesn't disappear? I despair of sorting this out.

[Sarah1203]

What if I delete the vouchers from the site completely?

[Mike Hughes]

You have two voucher pages on your site. The one that's a problem with the broken links is the "westcountry-nurseries-gift-vouchers.html " page. That one is from a previous version of your site as it was generated by an older version of sellerdeck which explains why it has so many bad links on it.

The current one is "garden-centre-gift-vouchers.html" and that one is fine so don't delete it.

What you have to do is log into your web server and delete the "westcountry-nurseries-gift-vouchers.html" file.

[Mike Hughes]

Once you've deleted the "westcountry-nurseries-gift-vouchers'.html" file, the next thing I'd look at is the 'Order Tracking' link you have at the bottom of every page. For some reason this doesn't work and that is the cause of a lot of the bad links on your site.

[Sarah1203]

Hi Mike
- where on the public site is there a reference to correct page for vouchers (which is "garden-centre-gift-vouchers.html")
If I just delete the old page "westcountry-nurseries-gift-vouchers.html " then surely the voucher link on the home page is going to break.
So do I need to change the home page to point to "garden-centre" (etc)? And do I do this in "site options" or somewhere else?
And where in the back end do I go to delete the 'old' page?
Thank you

[Sarah1203]

Also could I ask about the Order track broken links - I'm wondering if as I deleted the contact frm lnk this might be causing the problem? The contact form was deliberately disabled as it was causing a weird conflict with confirming orders via email. The hosting company thought it was being hacked and said 'Due to the site being an old sellerdeck one, you will more than likely have issues adding any CAPTCHA to the forms. I'd recommend just removing the form and keeping a page with your contact information on'.