Broken links

[andyh]

Hi, does anyone know if having broken links on a page harms the optimised page? I realise from a useability point of view etc that there should be no broken links, but does this actually hurt ranknings? Thanks.

[jeremy goodrich]

It would make sense for Google to penalize a site with lots of broken links, as it would make for a worse experience for the end user.

After all, if every top ranked site you found had lots of 404 errors on it, you would probably blame Google for it, yes? :)

I know some people would - so, it's in Google's best interest to present the most usable & high quality sites at the top for a query that matches the content.

Of course, I have no proof that Google would do this, but some of the research papers published by their staff lead me to believe that they *do this* in fact.