Summary: On a multi-location medical website with 18,700+ crawled URLs, a large-scale technical cleanup cut broken URLs by 82% (from about 620 to 109). In the same period total visitors grew by 2,500, roughly 2.6 times the previous level, and three more tracked keywords moved into Google’s top 3 (Ahrefs, October 2026).
What was the challenge?
Large medical sites grow fast: new providers, locations and services add pages every month, and old ones are moved or retired. Over time that leaves broken links, redirect chains and pages search engines waste time crawling. On this 18,700-URL site, technical debt was holding back crawl efficiency and rankings, even though the content itself was strong.
What did I do?
- Full technical audit: crawled the site with Ahrefs Site Audit and Screaming Frog to map broken URLs, redirects and crawl waste.
- Broken link and redirect cleanup: fixed or redirected roughly 500 broken URLs and mapped redirects so old pages pass value to their replacements.
- Crawl optimization: focused crawling on the pages that matter for patients and rankings.
- On-page and local SEO: improved key service and location pages alongside the technical work.
- Link building: 313 new referring domains in the period.
What were the results?
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Broken URLs | About 620 → 109 (−82%) |
| Total visitors | 4,000 (+2,500, about 2.6×) |
| Organic traffic | 3,000 visits a month (+107) |
| Ranking keywords | 759 |
| Tracked keywords on page 1 | 12 of 14 (4 in the top 3, +3) |
| Referring domains | 1,400 (+313) |
| Estimated traffic value | $3,000 a month |
Why does technical SEO matter on large sites?
On a site with thousands of URLs, small technical problems multiply. Fixing them rarely makes headlines, but it lets search engines spend their time on your most important pages. This is the same process I describe in my technical SEO audit checklist. If your site has grown faster than its structure, contact me for an audit.
Source: Ahrefs project dashboard, October 2026. The client’s name is withheld for confidentiality.