QA finding
A link has been broken for a long time
QA Warning Severity: Medium
Part of the audit Broken links. Finding id: qa.linkBrokenForLong.
What it costs you
A link that stays broken for weeks tells visitors and search engines that nobody looks after the page.
What to do
Point the link at the page that replaced the target, or remove it.
What it checks
- Link broken for many days
How to fix it
Repair or remove the link
- Open [source url] and find the link "[anchor]".
- If the target moved, link to its new address. If it is gone for good, remove the link or the sentence around it.
How to check: Recrawl the page: the link no longer appears in this list.
A real case
Researchers at Harvard Law School found that 50% of the URLs in US Supreme Court opinions, and more than 70% of those in the Harvard Law Review and other journals, no longer led to the information originally cited.
Thresholds
| Name | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
max_days_broken | 30 | Report a link that has been broken for more than this many days. A starting value, not taken from a source. |