Audit for 404 errors and fix or redirect them. Eliminate redirect chains (A→B→C) by pointing directly to the final URL.
The biggest ROI comes from fixing broken links on your highest-authority pages. Check your top-linked pages first — broken outbound links on these pages waste the most link equity.
Open Screaming Frog, enter your domain, and click Start. After the crawl, go to Response Codes > filter by "Client Error (4xx)" for broken pages. Then go to Response Codes > Redirection (3xx) > click "Redirect Chains" in the right panel.
Export the broken links to a spreadsheet. For each, decide: Fix (update the internal link to a working URL), Redirect (301 to the best alternative page), or Remove (if the content is gone forever, use 410 Gone status).
In WordPress: use the Rank Math Redirections module (Rank Math > Redirections > Add New). In Apache: add "Redirect 301 /old-page /new-page" to .htaccess. In Nginx: add "rewrite ^/old-page$ /new-page permanent;" to your config.
A 410 Gone tells Google the content has been intentionally removed and won't return. This is cleaner than a 404 and helps Google deindex the URL faster. Implement via server config or your CMS's redirect module.
Don't just add redirects — fix the source links too. In Screaming Frog, the "Inlinks" tab shows which pages link to the broken URL. Update each internal link to point directly to the correct destination, eliminating the redirect hop.
Here is a list of broken links and redirects found on my site: [PASTE CRAWL DATA] For each issue, provide: 1. Whether to 301 redirect, fix the link, or use a 410 (content permanently removed) 2. The ideal redirect target URL 3. Priority level based on the page's importance 4. Any redirect chains that should be flattened Also generate an .htaccess / nginx redirect map I can implement directly.
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