What are broken links and why they hurt your site

A broken link is a link that goes nowhere. Broken links affect SEO by interrupting how search engine crawlers move through your site, and they send visitors to error pages at the exact moment they were following a path deeper into your content. The damage is quiet, consistent, and easy to overlook until it has already accumulated across dozens of pages.

Sites that have been live for more than a year almost always have broken links. Pages get deleted, URLs change, third-party sites restructure. None of it sends an alert. The links just stop working, and visitors keep finding the dead ends. Understanding why website maintenance matters includes knowing that broken links are one of the most consistent and preventable sources of damage to site quality over time.

This article covers what broken links are, why they appear, how they hurt your site and its search performance, and the specific steps to find and fix each type.

What is a broken link?

A broken link is a hyperlink that no longer leads to a working page. When someone clicks it, instead of reaching the intended destination, they are sent to an error page, typically a 404 page indicating the content could not be found. The link itself looks normal on the page. There is no visible warning that following it leads to a dead end.

Broken links can be internal or external. An internal broken link points from one page on your site to another page on the same site that no longer exists or has moved. An external broken link points from your site to a page on a different site that has since been deleted or restructured. Both types create problems, though the fixes differ. Either way, the result for the person following the link is the same: they land somewhere that offers nothing.

Why do broken links happen?

Pages get deleted

When a page is removed from a site, any link that pointed to it becomes broken immediately. This is the most common source of internal broken links on established sites. Blog posts get retired, service pages get removed, old promotions get taken down. Without a redirect in place, every link that referenced those pages now leads nowhere.

URLs change

Changing a page's URL without setting up a redirect breaks every existing link to that page. This happens when sites reorganize their navigation structure, rename categories, or change slug formats across the site. The content still exists, but the address changed and the old one now returns an error.

External sites change their URLs

When your content links to a page on another site and that site restructures, renames, or deletes the page you linked to, your link breaks. You have no control over what happens to external sites, but you are responsible for the links on your own pages. An outbound link to an error on someone else's site reflects on the quality of your content just as much as an internal broken link does.

Typos in link URLs

A single incorrect character in a manually written link creates a broken link immediately. This includes links added inside blog posts, navigation items, footer links, and anywhere else a URL is typed rather than selected from a picker. A misplaced hyphen, an extra slash, or a transposed letter all produce the same result: a link that never worked.

Do broken links affect SEO?

Broken links affect SEO in two distinct ways. The first is how they interrupt crawl paths. Search engines discover pages by following links. When a crawler follows an internal link and hits a broken destination, the crawl path stops there. Pages that can only be reached through that broken link may not be crawled or indexed as frequently, which can reduce their visibility in search results.

The second is how they affect link equity distribution. When a page on your site has backlinks pointing to it and that page is deleted without a redirect, the ranking signals associated with those backlinks go to a page that returns an error instead of delivering content. Those signals are wasted rather than contributing to the rankings of a live page. Setting up a redirect from the broken URL to a relevant working page transfers most of that value to the destination.

Beyond the crawl and link equity issues, broken links are a signal of site quality. Search engines evaluate whether a site appears to be actively maintained and whether it provides a reliable experience for visitors. A site with a high volume of broken links scores poorly on both counts, and the impact compounds over time as links accumulate and go unfixed.

How do broken links affect your visitors?

A visitor who clicks a broken link was looking for something specific. They followed that link because the anchor text or the context around it suggested the destination would be useful. Landing on an error page instead ends that journey abruptly. There is no content, no reason to stay, and no obvious path back to what they were looking for unless the error page itself provides one.

The effect on trust is cumulative. One broken link on a site might be forgiven. Multiple broken links in a single session signal that the site is not being maintained, which undermines confidence in everything else on the site, including the content that is working correctly. Visitors who encounter broken links on service pages or product pages are especially unlikely to follow through on any action the site is trying to encourage.

How to find broken links on your website

Use a broken link checker

Broken link checker tools scan every link on a page or across an entire site and report which ones return error codes. Some run as browser extensions and check the page you are currently viewing. Others run as standalone web tools where you enter a URL and they crawl the full site. The output is a list of broken links, the pages they appear on, and the status code each one returned. This is the fastest way to get a complete picture of broken links across an active site.

Crawl the full site

A full site crawl follows every internal link starting from the homepage and records the HTTP status code each URL returns. Unlike a page-by-page check, a crawl maps the full link structure of the site and can identify broken links buried deep in content that would not surface from a surface-level scan. Running a crawl periodically is part of how to update your website content regularly, because content updates frequently introduce new internal links that need to be verified.

Check your analytics

Web analytics platforms can surface broken links indirectly. If your 404 error page records a page view, filtering analytics reports for that page reveals which URLs are generating errors and how much traffic they are receiving. You can also check referral reports to see which pages visitors were on before they reached a 404, which points to the specific links that need to be fixed. Setting up what website monitoring is and why you need it gives you ongoing visibility into site errors without requiring a manual check each time.

How to fix broken links

Set up a redirect

When a page has been deleted or moved and there is a relevant destination to send visitors to, a 301 redirect is the right fix. It tells browsers and search engines that the old URL has permanently moved to a new address and forwards visitors there automatically. Understanding what a 404 error is and how to fix it goes deeper into how redirects work and when to use them versus other approaches. The key rule for redirects is to send the broken URL to a page that is genuinely related to the content that was there before, not just to the homepage.

Update the link

When the broken link is caused by a typo or an outdated URL that now resolves to a different address, updating the link directly is the cleanest fix. Go to the page containing the broken link, correct the URL, save the change, and verify by following the updated link in a browser. For internal broken links caused by URL changes within your own site, updating the links is often faster than setting up redirects, especially if only a few pages are affected.

Remove the link

If the page a link pointed to no longer exists and there is no equivalent destination to redirect to, removing the link is the right option. A page without a link to a relevant destination is better than a page with a link that leads to an error. Remove the link text or rewrite the sentence so the reference is removed cleanly. Check whether the surrounding content still makes sense after the link is gone, and revise if necessary.

How WEMASY helps

WEMASY's website builder includes a redirect manager for setting up 301 redirects from the dashboard, so broken links caused by deleted or moved pages can be resolved without editing server files. When content is removed or restructured, redirects can be added immediately to keep visitors and search engine crawlers moving to working pages. For broken links inside content, WEMASY's page editor makes it straightforward to locate and update individual links across any page on the site.

See what is included at the WEMASY website builder or review plans on the pricing page.

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