Plugins that don't work
Links in the code of third-party plugins can break when the external platforms they depend on change their code.
For example, the social sharing buttons russia phone number example on the Backlinko blog shown in the image below will stop working if Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter) update their sharing button code.
Backlinko Blog Social Sharing Buttons for X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
Clicking the broken “Like” button could return a 404 error instead of allowing users to share your content.
This happens because your website is still running the old code, but Facebook's servers now expect different code for their plugin to work.
The impact on SEO
Broken links can affect SEO in several ways:
Site quality: Google wants to recommend useful, up-to-date sites. Too many broken links can indicate that your site is outdated or poorly maintained.
Crawl Errors: Google's site crawlers , or "bots," crawl the web by following links between pages. When a bot finds a broken link, it creates a crawl error. This means your page can't be fully crawled and indexed by search engines.
Wasted Link Authority: Internal links pass authority (known as link equity ) between connected pages on your site. But when Page A links to a broken Page B, that authority is wasted rather than passed on.
The more broken links you have on your site, the greater the impact on quality, crawlability, and SEO rankings .
The impact on UX