How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website
TL;DR: Broken links on your website damage SEO rankings and create poor user experiences. Find them by crawling your entire site with a tool that follows every link, then prioritize fixes based on traffic and link importance. Prevent future broken links by using relative URLs where possible, creating redirects when you move or delete content, and setting up ongoing monitoring to catch problems quickly.
Nothing says "this site isn't maintained" quite like clicking a link and landing on a 404 error page. Broken links erode trust, frustrate users, and tell search engines that your site might not be worth ranking highly. The good news is that finding and fixing them is straightforward once you have a systematic approach.
What Are Broken Links?
A broken link is any hyperlink on your website that points to a page or resource that doesn't exist or can't be reached. This includes internal links to pages you've deleted or moved, external links to other sites that have changed their URLs or gone offline, links to images, PDFs, or other files that have been removed, and redirect chains that eventually lead nowhere. When a user or search engine crawler follows a broken link, they receive an error response (typically a 404 "Not Found" status) instead of the expected content.
Why Broken Links Matter for Your Website
Broken links affect your site in ways you might not immediately notice, but the cumulative impact is significant.
Search engines use links to discover and evaluate content. When Googlebot encounters broken links, it can't follow those paths to index your content. More importantly, broken links signal poor maintenance, which can negatively affect how search engines perceive your site's quality. A site with many broken links might be seen as outdated or abandoned.
Users who click a link have a specific intent. A 404 error interrupts their journey and forces them to either search for what they wanted, use the back button, or leave entirely. Studies consistently show that users who encounter errors are significantly less likely to convert or return.
Internal links pass authority (sometimes called "link juice") between pages. When a broken link interrupts this flow, the target page misses out on the ranking benefits it would otherwise receive. External backlinks pointing to pages you've deleted represent wasted SEO value.
How to Find Broken Links
Using a Website Crawler
The most thorough approach is to crawl your entire website, following every link the way a search engine would. This reveals broken internal links that you created by deleting or moving pages, broken external links to other sites, redirect chains where one redirect leads to another, images and resources that return errors, and orphaned pages that exist but aren't linked from anywhere.
SecurityBot's broken link checker crawls your site automatically and reports all broken links with their source pages, making it easy to find and fix problems systematically.
Checking Google Search Console
Google Search Console reports crawl errors that Googlebot encountered while indexing your site. The Coverage report shows pages that returned 404 errors, and the Links report shows which pages link to those broken URLs. This data reflects what Google sees, which might differ from what your own crawl finds.
Manual Spot-Checking
For smaller sites or quick checks, you can manually verify links. Browser extensions like Check My Links highlight broken links on any page you visit. This approach works for spot-checking important pages but doesn't scale for comprehensive site audits.
Checking External Tools
Services like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz include broken link detection in their site audits. These tools often provide additional context like the number of backlinks pointing to broken pages and historical data about when links broke.
How to Fix Broken Links
Prioritize by Impact
Not all broken links are equally important. Focus first on links on high-traffic pages that many visitors will encounter, links to pages that have external backlinks pointing to them, links in your main navigation or footer, and links within your most important content.
A broken link in a ten-year-old blog post that gets three visits per month is less urgent than one in your pricing page or navigation menu.
Create 301 Redirects
When you've deleted or moved a page, the correct fix is usually a 301 (permanent) redirect to the new location. This tells search engines that the content has moved and preserves any SEO value from backlinks.
In Nginx, add redirect rules to your configuration:
location = /old-url {
return 301 /new-url;
}
In Apache, use .htaccess:
Redirect 301 /old-url /new-url
If you're using Laravel, WordPress, or another CMS, use the platform's built-in redirect functionality or a plugin designed for this purpose.
Fix the Link at the Source
Sometimes the right fix is to update the link itself rather than creating a redirect. This applies when you made a typo in the URL, when you're linking to an external site that changed its URL structure, or when the redirect would create an unnecessary hop.
Edit the page containing the broken link and update it to point to the correct destination.
Remove Links That Can't Be Fixed
External links to sites that no longer exist or pages that have been permanently removed should be removed or replaced. If you were linking to a resource as a reference, try to find an alternative source. If the link was incidental, removing it entirely might be appropriate.
Create Custom 404 Pages
No matter how diligent you are, some users will encounter 404 errors. A well-designed 404 page helps them recover by providing search functionality to find what they were looking for, links to popular or important pages, clear navigation back to your main content, and your brand identity so they know they're still on your site.
Preventing Future Broken Links
Use Relative URLs for Internal Links
When linking between pages on your own site, use relative URLs instead of absolute URLs. Instead of https://example.com/pricing, use /pricing. This prevents links from breaking if you change domains, move to HTTPS, or modify your URL structure.
Create Redirects Whenever You Change URLs
Before deleting a page or changing its URL, set up a redirect from the old URL to the new one. Make this part of your content workflow rather than something you do after users report problems.
Check External Links Before Publishing
Before publishing content with external links, verify that those links work. Tools like the Check My Links browser extension make this quick. This catches external broken links before they go live.
Monitor Links Continuously
One-time audits find current problems but don't prevent future ones. Set up ongoing monitoring that regularly crawls your site and alerts you when new broken links appear. SecurityBot's broken link monitoring runs automatically and notifies you when issues are detected.
Be Careful With Content Management
When reorganizing your site or cleaning up old content, remember that other pages might link to anything you delete. Check for internal links before removing content, and create redirects for anything that might have external backlinks.
Common Types of Broken Links
404 Not Found
The most common type of broken link. The page simply doesn't exist at the specified URL. This happens when pages are deleted, URLs change without redirects, or typos occur in link URLs.
500 Server Errors
These indicate a problem with the destination server rather than a missing page. External 500 errors might resolve themselves, but persistent ones should be reported to the site owner or the link should be replaced.
Redirect Chains and Loops
When one redirect leads to another, and another, and another, users experience delays and search engines may stop following the chain. Redirect loops (where A redirects to B and B redirects back to A) completely break access to the content.
Timeout Errors
Links to servers that don't respond within a reasonable time create a poor user experience. These might be temporary network issues or permanently offline sites.
Certificate Errors
Links to HTTPS pages with invalid, expired, or misconfigured SSL certificates will show security warnings in browsers. Users may be blocked from reaching the content entirely.
How SecurityBot Helps
SecurityBot's broken link checker crawls your website automatically and identifies all broken internal and external links. You get a complete report showing which pages contain broken links, what URLs are broken, and what type of error each link returns.
The crawler runs on a schedule you configure, so you catch new broken links quickly rather than during an occasional manual audit. When problems are found, you receive alerts so you can fix them before they affect many users.
For sites with many pages, SecurityBot handles the scale efficiently and presents results in a way that makes prioritization straightforward.
Start your free 14-day trial and get a complete broken link audit of your website.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many broken links are too many?
Any broken links on important pages (homepage, navigation, high-traffic content) should be fixed immediately. For a typical site, aim to keep broken links under 1% of total links. However, quality matters more than quantity. A few broken links on archived blog posts are less concerning than one broken link in your main navigation.
Do broken external links affect my SEO?
Linking to broken external pages doesn't directly hurt your SEO the way broken internal links do. However, it creates a poor user experience, and excessive broken external links might signal to search engines that your content isn't well-maintained.
How often should I check for broken links?
For actively updated sites, weekly or biweekly checks catch problems before they affect many users. For relatively static sites, monthly checks are usually sufficient. The key is consistency: regular automated monitoring is more effective than occasional comprehensive audits.
Should I fix broken links on old blog posts?
If the posts still receive traffic or have backlinks, yes. If they're truly abandoned content with no visitors, you might consider removing the posts entirely or updating them if the topics are still relevant. Don't let old content with broken links drag down your site's overall quality.
What about links to pages that require login?
Links to authenticated content may appear broken to crawlers that can't log in. This is expected behavior. Configure your crawler to exclude authentication-required pages or mark them as known exceptions.
Last updated: January 2026 | Written by Jason Gilmore, Founder of SecurityBot