How to Manage Broken Links

Answer

Use Confirm, Review, and Dismiss to manage broken links identified in Siteimprove's Quality Assurance module. Broken links are organized into three categories: Confirmed broken links, Links to review, and Dismissed links. Review each category and take the appropriate action to improve the experience for your website users.

Goal

Manage broken links in Siteimprove using the Confirm, Review, and Dismiss options.

Prerequisites

• Access to the Quality Assurance module
• Broken links identified by Siteimprove

Procedure

Step 1: View Broken Links

1. Go to Quality Assurance > Links > Broken links.
2. Review the broken links that have been identified.

Confirmed Broken Links

Confirmed broken links include links that have been confirmed as broken, either automatically (by Siteimprove) or manually (by a user on the account). Links that return a 404, soft 404, or 410 status code are automatically confirmed as broken. For more information on status codes, see What Are HTTP Status Codes and what do they mean?

Manage Confirmed Broken Links

1. Open the Confirmed broken links tab.
2. Use the magnifying glass icon to view examples of where the broken link occurs.
3. Review the link in Page Report to see the link in context.
4. Fix the broken link using your CMS. See How do I fix a broken link? for more information.
5. Optionally filter by: 
   • HTTP status code
   • Type of link (internal or external)
6. Sort or export the table to a CSV file if needed.
7. Use Dismiss if appropriate.

Tip: If you see lots of broken links on a site showing the same pattern, you should not dismiss them individually, instead you can reach out to Siteimprove technical support to investigate.

Links to Review

These links may only be temporarily broken, or links that are only broken for some users. This list should be reviewed manually and links either dismissed or confirmed as an issue.

Manage Links to Review

1. Open the Links to review tab.
2. Examine the affected links.
3. Determine whether the link is actually broken.
4. Confirm the link as broken if action is required.
5. Dismiss the link if it should not be treated as an issue.

Dismissed Links

These links are either not broken or links that cannot be fixed. These are similar to what we formerly called “Ignored links”. All previously ignored links will now be listed under this new tab.

For these links, a decision has been taken and can be reversed using the “undo” button.

Manage Dismissed Links

1. Open the Dismissed links tab.
2. Review previously dismissed links.
3. Use the undo button to reverse a decision if necessary.

When to Use Each Option

Confirm

Use Confirm when the link has been verified as broken and requires action.

Review

Use Review when the link may be temporarily unavailable or only broken for some users and requires further investigation.

Dismiss for now

Use Dismiss for now when the link should be removed from active review temporarily.

• The link will be moved to the Dismissed links tab.
• If the HTTP status code changes, the link will automatically be moved back to the appropriate category.
• The link will be removed from the broken links page if it returns a 200 HTTP status response.

Dismiss forever

Use Dismiss forever when a decision has been made that the link should remain dismissed.

• The link will be moved to the Dismissed links tab.
• The link will remain there unless a user reverses the decision.
• Siteimprove will continue checking the link and display the current HTTP status code if the decision is later undone.

Where Do I Start?

We suggest you first go to Quality Assurance > Links > Broken links and use the Confirmed broken links tab to start addressing the issues affecting your website users.

If you have any questions regarding this, please contact Siteimprove technical support.