How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website

Why Broken Links Hurt Your Site

When Googlebot encounters a broken link, it follows the link, gets a 404, and moves on. That is wasted crawl budget — time the crawler could have spent indexing your actual content. More importantly, any link equity (PageRank) that would have flowed through that link is lost.

For users, broken links erode trust. If someone clicks a link in your navigation or content and gets a 404 page, they are more likely to leave. This increases your bounce rate, which is another negative signal for search engines.

Step 1: Crawl Your Site

The first step is a comprehensive crawl. You need a tool that follows every link on your site and reports which ones return error status codes (404, 410, 500, etc.). The CheckFast Broken Links Checker does this automatically — enter your URL and it crawls your pages, following internal and external links, reporting every error it finds.

For large sites, also check Google Search Console. The Coverage report shows pages that returned 404 errors to Googlebot, which tells you exactly which broken URLs Google has already discovered.

Step 2: Categorize the Results

Not all broken links are equal. Categorize them:

• Internal broken links — Links on your site pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist. These are entirely in your control and should be fixed first.
• External broken links — Links on your site pointing to third-party pages that have moved or been deleted. Less urgent but still worth fixing.
• Inbound broken links — Other sites linking to pages on your site that no longer exist. You fix these with 301 redirects.

Step 3: Fix Internal Broken Links

For each internal broken link, you have three options:

1. Update the link — If the content moved to a new URL, update the link to point there.
2. Set up a 301 redirect — If many pages or external sites link to the old URL, create a permanent redirect from the old URL to the new one. This preserves link equity.
3. Remove the link — If the content no longer exists and there is no suitable replacement, remove the link entirely.

Use the CheckFast Redirect Checker to verify that your 301 redirects are working correctly and not forming redirect chains.

Step 4: Handle External Broken Links

When a third-party site removes content you linked to, you have these options:

• Find an alternative resource and update the link.
• Link to an archived version on the Wayback Machine.
• Remove the link and rephrase the surrounding content.

Step 5: Prevent Future Broken Links

Fixing broken links is reactive. To stay ahead:

• Run a broken link scan monthly. Set a calendar reminder or automate it.
• When deleting or moving pages, always set up 301 redirects before removing the old URL.
• Use relative URLs for internal links where possible to avoid issues when migrating domains.
• Add a custom 404 page that helps users find what they were looking for (search bar, popular links, sitemap link).