Why Your Small Business Website Images Aren't Loading and How to Fix Broken Links

Summary

This guide helps you troubleshoot and resolve: Why Your Small Business Website Images Aren't Loading and How to Fix Broken Links. Follow the steps below to fix the issue.

Common Causes

Missing images and broken links can make your small business website look unprofessional and drive potential customers away. Whether you run a local shop in Brisbane or a home office elsewhere in Australia, this guide will help you identify why your website images aren't loading and walk you through the steps to fix broken file paths and permission issues.

Quick Fix Steps

1. Refresh your browser page to rule out a temporary loading error.
2. Clear your browser cache to ensure you are viewing the most recent version of your site.
3. Check if the issue affects all images or only specific ones.
4. Verify that your website files are uploaded to the correct directory on your hosting account.

Detailed Instructions

Inspect the Broken Image

1. Open your website in a web browser such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari.
2. Right-click on the area where the image should appear.
3. Select Inspect or Inspect Element from the context menu.
4. Look at the highlighted HTML code for an img tag.
5. Check the src attribute to see the file path the browser is trying to load.

Check File Paths and Names

1. Log in to your hosting control panel or connect via an FTP client.
2. Navigate to the folder where your website images are stored, typically /public_html/images/ or /www/images/.
3. Confirm that the image file exists in that folder.
4. Compare the filename on the server with the filename in your src attribute. Remember that file names are case-sensitive; Photo.jpg is not the same as photo.jpg.
5. If the file is missing or misspelled, upload the correct file or update the file path in your website code.

Verify File Permissions

1. Right-click the image file in your FTP client or file manager.
2. Select File Permissions or Change Permissions.
3. Set the permissions to 644 for files. This allows the owner to read and write, while others can only read.
4. For folders containing images, set permissions to 755.
5. Click OK or Apply to save the changes.

Troubleshooting

CMS and Plugin Issues

If you use a content management system like WordPress, broken images are often caused by incompatible extensions or plugin conflicts.

1. Log in to your website admin dashboard.
2. Navigate to the Plugins menu.
3. Deactivate any recently installed plugins related to image optimisation or caching.
4. Refresh your website to see if the images reappear.
5. Reactivate plugins one by one to identify the conflicting extension.

Database Connection and Script Errors

Underlying script version mismatches or database connection drops can prevent your website from retrieving image URLs stored in the database.

1. Check your website error logs via your hosting control panel.
2. Look for errors related to database connections or PHP version mismatches.
3. Ensure your CMS and all installed themes are updated to the latest stable versions.
4. If you recently performed an automated update, verify that the database schema was updated correctly.

When to Get Further Help

If you have checked your file paths, verified permissions, and updated your CMS but images are still missing, there may be a deeper server configuration issue. You can Open a Ticket with our Brisbane support team for assistance.

Still Having Issues?