We've all cursed when following a link that promises to provide the information we need, only to see the dreaded "404 error: this page cannot be found". Broken links not only send website visitors running, but are a red flag for Google and search engine rankings. If your business website is more than a few pages (and I hope it is!) manually checking for broken links by clicking them all is just impractical. So how do you automatically check for broken links?

A Google search gives loads of "broken link checkers", but the fact is most of these only scan your home page, and many are just the same tool embedded in different websites. The w3c Link Checker is a great tool for scanning an entire website for broken links.

If your website is built using the WordPress content management system, the Broken Link Checker plugin is essential! The plugin monitors your pages and posts, running automatically at set times and reports any broken links in your dashboard. At this stage there is one Joomla CMS component for checking broken links, bus as it doesn't run on a scedule there is little benifit over the w3c link checker.

Now if you haven't already go and find those pesky 404 errors on your business website and make it a pleasant experience for Google and your customers!