Imagine walking through a physical grocery store looking for milk. You follow signs to dairy aisle, turn corner, and find a solid brick wall instead of shelves. That would be incredibly annoying. On internet, this exact experience happens when customers click on broken links.
A broken link occurs when a webpage gets deleted, or its web address changes without anyone fixing connected buttons. When a user clicks that link, instead of seeing a product, they get hit with an ugly page saying "404 Error: Page Not Found." It is a digital dead end that stops shoppers right in their tracks.
Having too many dead ends frustrates human visitors, making them leave to shop elsewhere. It also confuses search engine robots exploring website. If robots keep bumping into dead ends, they assume website is abandoned or poorly managed, leading to lower rankings. Finding and fixing these links keeps path to purchase completely smooth.