How to Fix Broken Links on Your Website

What are broken links?

Broken links (also called dead links) are hyperlinks that point to a URL that no longer exists. Here are the most common situations:

• Deleted pages — You removed a blog post or service page but left links pointing to it.
• Moved pages without redirects — You changed a URL structure but did not set up a 301 redirect from the old address.
• Typo in the URL — A link was written with a spelling error (e.g. "/servces" instead of "/services").
• Deleted external sites — You linked to another website and that site went offline or removed the page.
• Changed domain names — An external site you linked to changed its domain without redirecting.

Why broken links matter

Bad for user experience

Imagine clicking a link that promises helpful information and landing on a dead 404 page. Visitors get frustrated, lose trust, and often leave your site. If you run an online store or a local service business, a broken link on your booking page or checkout page means lost revenue.

Bad for SEO

Search engines like Google care about the quality of the links on your site. Too many broken links signals that the site is neglected. Broken links also waste what SEOs call "link equity" — the value that a link passes from one page to another. When a link leads to a 404 page, that value is lost. Google's crawlers also waste time hitting dead ends instead of finding your important pages.

Broken links are one of the first issues an SEO audit checks for. If you want a broader look at what an audit covers, our SEO audit checklist for beginners walks through everything in one place.

How to find broken links on your website

You have a few options, ranging from completely manual to fully automatic.

Option 1: Use an SEO audit tool (easiest)

The simplest way is to run an SEO audit that automatically finds every broken link on your site. An audit tool crawls all your pages, follows every link, and reports each one that returns a 404 error. SEO CheckSite finds broken links automatically and explains exactly where each one is located and what URL it points to. You do not need any technical setup.

Option 2: Manual checking

You can click through every link on your website by hand. For very small sites with only a handful of pages, this might be feasible. But it is time-consuming, easy to miss links, and hard to repeat regularly. Most people give up after the first few pages.

Option 3: Google Search Console

If you have Google Search Console set up, check the "Pages" report for 404 errors that Google found while crawling. This only shows pages Google tried to visit — not every broken link on your site. An SEO audit is more thorough.

How to fix broken links step by step

Once you have a list of broken links, here is exactly what to do for each one. These three choices cover every situation:

1. Update the link URL — If the page still exists at a different URL, simply change the link to point to the correct address. This is the cleanest fix because the visitor lands exactly where they expected.
2. Set up a 301 redirect — If the old page is gone but you have a related page that covers the same topic, redirect the old URL to the new page. A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that the page permanently moved. This preserves any SEO value the old page had. Most website platforms (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix) have a redirect settings area where you can add them.
3. Remove the link — If there is no useful page to point to and no related content on your site, just delete the link entirely. A visitor is better off not seeing the link at all than clicking it to a 404 page.

Tools that help you find and fix broken links

If you want a full comparison of tools, check out our guide on best SEO audit tools for small businesses.