Imagine opening a website and finding broken images and links that take you nowhere. How would you feel about this as a user engaging with a website? It’s something to think about, isn’t it? Poor performance, such as a slow website, can leave users disappointed and may lead them to abandon your site altogether, damaging your WordPress website’s reputation and brand image.
Images play a significant role in enhancing users’ experience and engagement. Any broken image on your site ultimately devalues your WordPress website and brand image, which is why it’s crucial to address how to fix broken images in WordPress.
Besides engagement, images also play an important role in website rankings, so broken images can be bad news for your overall website reputation. But, not to worry, there are many ways to detect and fix broken images in WordPress.
While you can always ensure that WordPress website links are in place with WordPress support, it’s important to understand the basics of fixing broken images. So, today, we will explore these broken images and how you can easily fix them in WordPress.
Let’s get started.
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ToggleWhat Is a Broken Image, And Why Is It Important?
In simple words, broken images lead to a link that is no longer available or corrupted. When users click on a broken image, they either get a 404 or broken image symbol, signifying the image is broken/unavailable. It is one of the most common WordPress errors.
As implied in the beginning, a broken image is a critical event on your website. For example, if you have an e-commerce store or hospitality website that usually relies on product images, a user navigating such websites is expecting to see some good images. If he/she finds a broken image, this can have a negative impact on your business while hampering user experience altogether.
Not only users but even Google bots can scan your website for broken links and flag it as unreliable or spammy due to broken images. This also impacts your responsive WordPress web design.
Thus, having broken images or links on your website can damage its credibility and brand image. So, it is important for you to perform regular website maintenance, check for any broken images or links on your website, and fix them immediately.
Related: How To Optimize Images And Improve Website Speed?
How to Detect Broken Images in WordPress?
Now that you understand broken links and how they can affect your WordPress website’s reputation, it’s imperative to detect broken images.
While there are many ways to check broken links on your website, the easier way is to use a WordPress plugin known as Broken link checker. With this plugin, you can easily check for any broken images or dead links on your website and fix broken images in WordPress.
The plugin has both a free and a premium version. The free version allows you to detect issues with a manual scan, while the premium version offers more advanced features. To start detecting the broken images and links:
- Install and activate the broken link checker plugin in WordPress
- After installing the plugin, go to the broken link checker page, select broken link scan and click on start a new scan
- The plugin will start scanning for all your website’s broken links. You can see all the number of pages and posts in the progress bar while the scan is still ongoing
- Once the scan is over, you’ll get a list of all the broken links so that you can fix broken images in WordPress.
Alternatively, you can use Seahawk’s broken link checker tool, which is a part of our free testing tools, or hire our WordPress developers for quick results.
How to Fix Broken Images in WordPress?
Before we dive into how to fix broken images in WordPress, why not look into some of the reasons behind this issue? Let’s look at the issues that can lead to broken images in WordPress:
- Incorrect file path to the image location.
- Corrupted image file.
- Mismatch in image format (e.g., the image file is .jpg, but the code identifies it as .png).
- Changes to the image file name.
- Files deleted or missing from the server (often occurs during site migration).
The above are a few reasons for the broken images on your website. Let’s see how we can fix these issues, fix broken images in WordPress, and reduce the chances of bounce rates.
Read: Why Is Your WordPress Slow?
Incorrect File Path – Fix Broken Images in WordPress
WordPress generates a file path to specify the image’s location when you add images to your website. Web browsers use this path in the image src attribute to locate and display the image. The images will not display and take more load time if the path is incorrect.
Related: What is Speed Index
To fix this issue, you need to find the post or page with the broken image icon and replace it with another image. Here’s how:
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- Navigate to the post or page with the broken image.
- Hover over the post and select “Edit.”
- In the post editor, scroll to the section with the broken image.
- Click on the broken image and select “Replace.”
- Pick a picture from your media library or upload a new image.
- Click “Update” to save your changes.
Related: How To Improve Google PageSpeed On WordPress?
Replacing Custom HTML Images
If you add an image using custom HTML or CSS, you must ensure the path is correct. Here’s how to verify and fix it, especially if it’s in the Additional CSS block:
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- Go to Appearance >> Customize.
- Select the Additional CSS block or Custom CSS menu.
- In the code editor, locate the line of code where the photo was added and highlight the image path.
- Right-click and select “Go to path-to-file.”
- If the image is unavailable, you will see a 404 not found error.
- Re-upload the image to your website:
- Navigate to Media >> Add New.
- Click “Select Files” and select the image file.
- Once the upload is complete, click “Copy URL to Clipboard.”
- Navigate back to the customizer page and replace the broken image link with the new URL you copied.
- Click “Publish” to save your changes.
Do not miss: WordPress Maintenance Tasks – Ultimate Checklist You Need to Follow
Fixng Broken Links In WordPress Can Be a Tricky Task to Take Over
If you’re a beginner with WordPress, our WordPress support team can assist you with fixing broken link issues.
Cross-check the Filenames
A common cause of broken images and loading problems is mismatched filenames. You must check the spelling of the image file in your code to ensure it matches exactly the one in the media library to fix broken images in WordPress.
Let’s see how we can fix this issue:
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- Go to Media >> Library.
- Use the search box to find the image you want to compare.
- Hover over the image and select “View.”
- Check the address bar for the image path. The highlighted part is the image’s filename.
Now, move over to the post with the broken image:
- Open the page in your browser.
- Right-click on the broken image and select “Open image in new tab.”
- Compare the filename in the address bar with the one in the media library.
If there are still discrepancies between the filenames, this could be preventing the image from displaying, resulting in a 404 not found error.
- Edit the post with the broken image.
- Replace the incorrect filename with the correct one from the media library
- Update the post to save your changes.
If the image still does not display, upload the image again and add it to your post. Make sure to update the post to save these changes. This should resolve the issue, and the image should now be displayed correctly.
Learn: How to fix slow WordPress backend?
Incorrect File Extensions
It’s important to double-check the file extensions for your images. Even if the filename is correct, an incorrect file extension can cause problems. For example, you might upload an image .jpg file, but the code references it as a .png. This mismatch will prevent the image from loading.
Another common issue is with the “jpg” and “jpeg” extensions. Although these image formats are the same, using one instead of the other can lead to a broken image error. Make sure the file extension in your code matches exactly with the one in your media library to avoid any issues.
Use a Relative File Path
Using a relative file path links to a file based on its location relative to the homepage URL. In WordPress, a relative path omits the domain name and only uses the path after the domain.
For example, in the “src” attribute, instead of using
“https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image.png, “you can use “/wp-content/uploads/image.png.” This shorter link will still work fine for your images.
One of the benefits of using a relative path is that your images will continue to work even if you change your domain name, as long as the files are still hosted on the same server. This approach provides flexibility and ensures your images remain accessible across domain changes.
Suggested Read: How to Move a WordPress Site to a New Domain
Verify If the Image Exists
Sometimes, you might link to an image hosted on a different website. If that site goes down or relocates to a different server, your images will no longer be available.
Additionally, linking directly to another site increases server usage on the site hosting the image. If the host website disables hotlinking, your image will not display.
Learn: What Is Link Stability In SEO?
To avoid these issues, it is best to upload every image to your website before adding it to a page. Also, avoid using images from third-party websites unless you have permission to do so. This ensures your images are always available and reduces the risk of broken links.
While not common, transfer issues can occur. Sometimes, your server becomes overwhelmed and cannot load all page assets quickly enough before the request times out. This issue is more frequent with cheaper web servers.
Consider upgrading your server’s capacity or migrating to a more reliable web host to resolve this. Additionally, enabling lazy loading for your images can help. When lazy loading is enabled, your server will only load images as the user scrolls to that section. This reduces server load and speeds up your website.
Read: Best WordPress Speed Optimization Services
Speed Optimization Is a Secret Sauce For WordPress Site Success
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Conclusion
Keeping your website free of broken images is important for maintaining a good reputation, engaging users, and boosting your search engine rankings. As explained above, there are various ways to detect and fix broken images in WordPress.
If you prefer to fix broken images in WordPress yourself, start by finding out what’s causing the problem. It could be a damaged file, a wrong file path, or something else. Once you know the cause, you can fix it by restoring, replacing, or deleting the image.
Keeping your website free of broken images not only improves user experience but also helps your search engine rankings. So, never underestimate the power of images on your website, and keep an eye on your WordPress website to maintain website performance.