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Doing nothing can pay off in search results.
Here’s why: When other people fiddle around with and “fix” their blogs, they break links.
Don't let this be your blog
Every broken link is one less search result for you to compete with.
If you haven’t used Broken Link Checker, try it out. You might be startled at how many broken links it finds on your blog. You might be dismayed at how many of those links are internal links – on your blog – that you broke!
As I write this, I’ve just finished eliminating a half dozen broken links. Some internal, some external. One needed complete replacement. I had to do a web search to find it’s new URL.
Eliminating broken links on your blog isn’t difficult, but you do need to keep track of your own 404 logs, and make sure you’re not delivering any HTTP 404 error pages. Make sure every valid incoming URL has a home, whether that incoming URL is stale or not. Sure, maybe you changed some permalinks. That’s cool, just make sure to get everything redirected properly. I use Godley’s Redirection plugin extensively, it’s the right tool for the job.
Once you have great content on your website, don’t fiddle around with your links. Your unoptimized links may hurt for SEO in the short term… in the long term, not so much. The upshot:
The less you fiddle, the less you break.
If you really need to change your linking strategy, make a plan, start small, test extensively, consider hiring a professional web developer.
But think hard beforehand… your position in the search engine’s index could be at risk.
