What is a broken link?

A broken link is a hyperlink that points to a page that no longer exists, returning a 404 error or other error status when visited.

How do broken links affect SEO?

Broken links waste crawl budget, break the flow of link equity through your site, and create a poor user experience that increases bounce rates.

How often should I check for broken links?

Check for broken links at least monthly, or set up automated weekly scans. Links break over time as external sites change and internal pages are reorganized.

← Blog

How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website

technical health Feb 17, 2026 3 min read

What the broken links check tests

SiteCurl follows every internal and external link on your page and checks whether it returns a successful response (HTTP 200). Links that return 404, 500, or fail to connect are flagged as broken.

Why it matters

Broken links create two problems. For visitors, clicking a link that leads to a 404 page is a dead end. It erodes trust and often causes them to leave your site.

For search engines, broken links waste crawl budget. Googlebot follows links to discover and index your pages. Every broken link is a wasted crawl that could have been spent on a real page. Over time, too many broken links signal to search engines that the site is poorly maintained.

How to fix it

Identify the broken links

A SiteCurl scan lists every broken link with the source page and the broken URL. This tells you exactly which page contains the link and where it points.

Fix by category

Internal links to moved pages: If you renamed or reorganized pages, update the link to the new URL. If the page was deleted intentionally, remove the link or replace it with a relevant alternative.

Internal links to deleted pages: Either remove the link, redirect the old URL to a relevant page (301 redirect), or create new content at that URL.

External links to other sites: Third-party sites change URLs, shut down, or restructure. Replace the broken link with an updated URL, an alternative source, or remove it. For important references, check the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) for an archived version.

Links with typos: Check for common errors: double slashes (//page instead of /page), missing protocols, or misspelled slugs.

Prevent future broken links

Run regular scans (weekly or monthly) to catch new broken links early.
When you move or delete pages, set up 301 redirects from the old URL to the new one.
Avoid hardcoding external URLs in multiple places. If an external resource changes, you only want to update it in one spot.

How to verify the fix

After updating or removing broken links, run another scan and confirm the broken links section is clean. For individual links, visit the URL in your browser to confirm it loads.

Broken links often appear after a site redesign or alongside redirect chain issues.

Start a free trial to scan for broken links across your site.