We have been building and maintaining websites for years, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s this: website errors don’t announce themselves. They sit quietly on your pages, breaking user journeys and affecting search visibility, while you assume everything is fine because the homepage looks okay.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth. Most of the issues affecting your website can be fixed in less than ten minutes. You don’t need a developer on retainer or a paid enterprise suite. You need to know what to look for, and you need one dedicated website audit session on your calendar.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through seven common errors we come across on websites and explain exactly how to identify and fix each one.
Why Small Errors Cause Big Damage
Before we get into the list, let’s look at a common scenario. An online store may have a checkout page that has been quietly returning a 404 error on mobile devices for several weeks. Desktop visitors may not experience the same issue, so the problem can go unnoticed. As a result, potential customers may abandon their purchases simply because they cannot complete the checkout process due to a broken link.
That’s how many technical SEO problems affect websites. They’re rarely dramatic. Instead, small issues accumulate over time and can affect website usability, crawlability and search performance.
Pages that frustrate visitors create a poor user experience. Every broken element on your website can make it harder for visitors to find information, navigate pages and complete their intended actions.
Start Here: Run a Free Broken Link Scan First
Here’s the workflow we recommend: before you work on anything else, scan your website for broken links. Why start here? Because broken internal links, dead external links and redirect chains, which are three of the seven errors covered in this guide, are all related to link issues. A single scan can help identify several of these problems at once.
This is where we point you to a free broken link checker that does exactly this:
- Paste your URL and let the tool crawl your pages automatically
- See every dead link with its status code, so you know whether it needs a fix or a redirect
- Catch internal and external links in one pass, no manual page by page checking
- Zero cost, zero signup friction, which means there’s genuinely no excuse to skip this step
Our recommendation: Bookmark the tool and run a scan every month. Websites are constantly evolving, and links can break as other websites change their URLs or remove pages. A five-minute monthly scan can help prevent the need for a major cleanup later.
Once your scan is complete, you’ll already have a list of potential issues to address, covering three of the seven errors discussed below. That’s a great starting point for your regular website maintenance routine.
The 7 Errors (And Their Quick Fixes)
Here’s a quick reference table before we go deeper:
| # | Error | Damage Level | Fix Time | Difficulty |
| 1 | Broken internal links | High | 5 to 10 min | Easy |
| 2 | Dead external links | Medium | 10 min | Easy |
| 3 | Missing image alt text | Low to Medium | 10 to 15 min | Easy |
| 4 | Redirect chains | Medium | 15 min | Moderate |
| 5 | Missing meta descriptions | Medium | 10 min | Easy |
| 6 | Orphan pages | Medium | 20 min | Moderate |
| 7 | Slow loading pages | High | Varies | Moderate |
Now let’s break each one down.
1. Broken Internal Links
The problem: Internal links pointing to pages that no longer exist. This happens constantly after redesigns, content pruning, or URL structure changes.
The damage: Visitors hit a dead end and bounce. Crawlers waste crawl budget chasing 404s instead of indexing your good content. Internal linking is how search engines understand your site structure. Break it, and you weaken every page downstream.
Real-time tip: We check for broken links immediately after any content deletion or URL change. That’s when 90% of them appear.
2. Dead External Links
The problem: Websites you linked to months or years ago have moved, died, or changed their URLs.
The damage: This one stings because it’s not your fault, but Google doesn’t care whose fault it is. An article citing sources where half the citations are dead reads as abandoned content. Your link equity stops flowing, and your credibility takes the hit.
The fix: Replace dead links with current sources, or remove them entirely. Never leave a dead citation in place “temporarily.” Temporary becomes permanent fast.
3. Missing Image Alt Text
The problem: Images uploaded without alt attributes. Surprisingly common on older posts.
The damage: You lose image search traffic, hurt accessibility (screen readers can’t describe your images), and miss relevance signals.
The fix: Describe what the image actually shows, naturally. Not alt=”image1″ but something like alt=”dashboard showing monthly organic traffic growth”.
4. Redirect Chains
The problem: URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects to URL C, which finally lands on the live page.
The damage: Every hop adds load time and dilutes ranking signals. Three hop chains are common on sites that have been through two or three redesigns without cleanup.
The fix: Point the original URL directly at the final destination. One hop, one destination.
5. Missing or Duplicate Meta Descriptions
The problem: Pages with no meta description, or ten pages sharing the same one.
The damage: Google generates its own snippet when yours is missing, and its auto-snippet rarely sells your page the way you would. Duplicate descriptions confuse which page should rank for what.
The fix: Write one unique, 150 to 160 character description per important page. Include the primary keyword naturally.
6. Orphan Pages
The problem: Pages that exist but receive zero internal links. They’re only findable via sitemap or direct URL.
The damage: When no other pages link to a particular page, search engines may have difficulty discovering it through normal website navigation, and visitors may not find it easily. We’ve come across websites with valuable service pages that became orphaned simply because the navigation was redesigned and those pages were overlooked.
The fix: Add contextual internal links from related, higher authority pages. Two or three natural links from relevant content does more than fifty footer links.
7. Slow Loading Pages
The problem: Oversized images, bloated plugins, and unoptimized scripts stacking up over time.
The damage: Page speed is a confirmed ranking factor, and mobile users abandon slow pages within seconds. This one takes longer to fix than the others, but the diagnosis takes minutes.
The fix: Run a speed test, compress anything above 1MB, and audit your plugin list ruthlessly.
Prevention: Keep Errors From Coming Back
Fixing is half the battle. Staying clean is the other half. My prevention checklist:
- Redirect old URLs whenever you delete or restructure pages. Never leave 404s behind.
- Link check after every redesign. This is when most breakage happens.
- Update external citations in your best performing posts quarterly.
- Keep a URL log so old addresses never get lost during migrations.
- Schedule monthly scans. Consistency beats intensity in site maintenance.
Final Thoughts
Here’s the mindset we encourage every website owner to adopt: stop treating errors as emergencies and start treating them as part of regular website maintenance. The seven issues discussed above aren’t unusual problems. They’re common challenges that arise as websites grow, evolve and change over time.
Run a scan, work through the list step by step, and schedule a monthly website check. Your website’s performance, your visitors’ experience and your long-term search visibility will all benefit.
Quick FAQ
How often should I check my website for broken links?
For most sites, monthly is the sweet spot. Large content heavy sites or e-commerce stores should scan every two weeks.
Do broken links really affect Google rankings?
Indirectly, yes. Broken links waste crawl budget, weaken internal linking signals, and degrade user experience, all of which influence how search engines evaluate your site.
Can I fix website errors without technical skills?
Absolutely. Everything in this list, broken links, alt text, meta descriptions, redirects, can be handled with free tools and a CMS dashboard. Start with a broken link scan; it requires no technical knowledge at all.