Dealing with broken internal links/404s. What's best practice?

[Adam_SEO_Learning]

I've just started working on a website that has generated lots (100s) of broken internal links. Essentially specific pages have been removed over time and nobody has been keeping an eye on what internal links might have been affected. Most of these are internal links that are embedded in content which hasn't been updated following the page's deletion.

What's my best way to approach fixing these broken links?

My plan is currently to redirect where appropriate (from a specific service page that doesn't exist to the overall service category maybe?) but there are lots of pages that don't have a similar or equivalent page. I presume I'll need to go through the content removing the links or replacing them where possible.

My example is a specific staff member who no longer works there and is linked to from a category page, should i be redirecting from the old staff member and updating the anchor text, or just straight up replacing the whole thing to link to the right person?

In most cases, these pages don't rank and I can't think of many that have any external websites linking to them.

I'm over thinking all of this?

Please help!

[WompM]

If the 404 link has an equivalent on site, I'd update the link to point at the new equivalent. Even if the page isn't ranking, there's potential for a visitor to get to the page, so why not send them to proper content if you have it.

There's also a Moz Blog post regarding 404 pages: https://moz.com/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo 

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

Those pages have been deleted for a reason so rather than redirecting to a page that's not relevant or one that's the main category page why not just get rid of the link?  this will increase the link equity of the good links coming from that page that go to places that users want to go to.

Certainly when someone leaves you need to redirect 'Job title' to the new owner of that job title.  That's what users will want. But sending people around in circles on your site is pointless and will potentially cause them frustration and to leave. If you're trying to find more info and you end up going 'up a level' and not to a deeper and more detailed level then that always makes me bounce because I figure the website can't answer my question or give me the info I need.

Think about the user.  Pagerank sculpting is dead. But it's still important to make sure there is always a path for a user to follow to get the info they need.  If there is not then delete the entire sentence and the original link.  It's only going to help strengthen the link equity flow throughout your site.

Simplify - don't complicate. That would be my advice. And remember to ask for a crawl of the updated page and it's direct links to get a quick index and see whether it helps your pages rank.

You don't necessarily need links to internal pages from external sources.  That's not the reason they are not ranking.  They are not ranking because people aren't navigating to them (no implicit user feedback signals) or they don't entice people to click from their SERP entry. So look at updating the title tags and meta descriptions and doing what you suggest, where appropriate change the anchor text to the right thing and link to the right place or just delete the link.

I have a really useful 'notable alumni' page for great people who used to work at our practice but now don't.  You'll need their permission to keep them on your site and it helps if they had a nice page with good DA and PA that links with anchor text to - for example - a product or service.

But google HATES 404's so get rid of them all as soon as you can and watch the pages that remain creep up the rankings.

[Adam_SEO_Learning]

Thank you, you answered all of my questions and some more I didn't ask...but should have!

The notable alumni page is a great idea, and not one I'd thought of.

It's going to be a lengthy process, but I'm no happy that I know I'm doing the right things.

Thank you again!