Broken Link Checker

What Are Broken Links and Why They Matter

A broken link (also called a dead link) is a hyperlink that points to a page or resource that no longer exists. When a user clicks a broken link, they typically see a 404 Not Found error instead of the content they expected. Broken links create a poor user experience because visitors who encounter dead ends are likely to leave your site and may not return. For businesses, every broken link represents a potential lost customer, a missed conversion, or a damaged first impression. Search engines like Google also view broken links as a sign of poor site maintenance, which can indirectly affect how your site ranks in search results.

How Broken Links Affect SEO

Search engine crawlers follow links to discover and index pages across your website. When crawlers encounter broken links, they waste their limited crawl budget on dead ends instead of indexing your valuable content. Over time, this leads to fewer of your pages appearing in search results. Broken links also disrupt the flow of link equity (sometimes called "link juice") throughout your site. If an important page has inbound links pointing to a URL that returns a 404, all the ranking power from those links is lost. Google has confirmed that while a few broken links will not tank your rankings overnight, a site full of dead links signals neglect and can hurt your overall domain authority. Running a broken link checker regularly helps you catch and fix these issues before they accumulate.

Common Causes of Broken Links

The most frequent cause is a page being deleted or moved without setting up a proper redirect. This happens during site redesigns, CMS migrations, or when old blog posts are removed. Typos in URLs are another common culprit, especially when links are manually entered into content. External links break when third-party websites go offline, restructure their URLs, or shut down entirely. Domain name changes, expired SSL certificates, and server misconfigurations can also produce broken links. E-commerce sites are particularly prone to dead links because product pages are created and removed frequently as inventory changes.

How to Fix Broken Links

Start by running a website link checker like this tool to get a full list of broken URLs on your site. For each broken link, determine the best fix. If the target page was moved, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. If the page was deleted intentionally, update or remove the link from your content. For external broken links, either find an updated URL for the resource, link to an alternative source, or remove the link altogether. Use your CMS search and replace feature to fix links that appear across multiple pages at once. After making fixes, re-run the broken link checker to verify that everything resolves correctly.

Monitoring Your Site for Dead Links

Fixing broken links is not a one-time task. New dead links appear constantly as you publish content, remove old pages, and external sites change. Set a schedule to run a dead link checker at least once a month. For larger sites with hundreds or thousands of pages, consider running weekly scans. Pay special attention to your highest-traffic pages and landing pages because broken links on those pages have the biggest impact on user experience and conversions. Keep a log of the broken links you find and fix so you can track patterns. If the same type of link keeps breaking, address the root cause rather than fixing each instance individually.

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