Fixing a “Leaky” Site: A Broken Outbound Link Audit & Cleanup
Client: A large, 10-year-old blog in the “tech & gadget” niche with 2,000+ articles.
Challenges We Faced
The client’s old, authoritative site was slowly “decaying” from 10 years of neglect:
Thousands of Broken Outbound Links
A Comprehensive Outbound Link Audit with Screaming Frog found 1,500+ broken external links seo (404s).
Poor User Experience (UI/UX)
Users were clicking links to dead pages, causing frustration and a high bounce rate.
Negative SEO Signals
Google saw the 1,500+ broken links as a sign of a poorly maintained, low-quality, and untrustworthy site.
Wasted Crawl Budget
Google’s bots were following thousands of links to dead ends.
No Redirects for Removed Links
Many broken outbound links weren’t redirected, losing link equity and harming SEO authority.
Fix Your Broken Links
“Are broken outbound links killing your user experience? Our Broken Outbound Link Cleanup service will find and fix every 404 on your site.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Comprehensive Outbound Link Audit
We used Screaming Frog and Ahrefs to crawl all 2,000+ articles and find every broken (404) outbound link.
Broken Outbound Link Cleanup
This was the core. Our outbound link building company systematically went through the 1,500+ broken links.
Content Refresh Services
We didn’t just remove the dead links; we replaced them with new, relevant, and authoritative sources from 2025. This also “refreshed” the old content.
Technical SEO (Crawlability)
By fixing all 404s, we improved the user journey and stopped wasting Google’s crawl budget.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broken Outbound Links (404s) | 1,500+ | 25 | -98% |
| Google Crawl Errors (GSC) | 1,200+ | 20 | -98% |
| Site-wide Organic Traffic | 120,000/mo (declining) | 150,000/mo (growing) | +25% |
Free Broken Link Audit
“Not sure if your site is ‘leaking’? Book a Free 1,000-Page Crawl and let our outbound link building company find your broken links!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- Broken links are a major negative signal of a poorly maintained site.
- Run a Comprehensive Outbound Link Audit (with Screaming Frog) on your site at least twice a year.
- Don’t just remove broken links; replace them with new, authoritative sources. This Content Refresh Service is a powerful “freshness” signal.
- Fixing broken outbound links is a fast, technical win that improves both UX and SEO.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The sheer scale (10 years of content) required a tool-based approach (Screaming Frog).
- Replacing old links with new 2025 stats/sources also served as a “content refresh,” which Google rewarded.
- The client’s crawl errors in Google Search Console dropped dramatically.
