Broken Links: How to Find and Fix Them, Internal and Outbound

Broken links are links that lead to a page that no longer loads: the destination returns an error such as 404 (not found), the domain is gone, or the server fails. They sit in two places: internal links between your own pages and outbound links to other sites. Fixing them takes an afternoon, and nothing else on a technical SEO checklist is as easy to check.

Do broken links hurt SEO?

Google’s Search Console Help says 404 errors won’t impact your site’s search performance, and that you can ignore them if the URLs should not exist. So a 404 is not a penalty. Here is where broken links do cost you:

• Visitors hit a dead end and leave, which loses leads and sales.
• Link value stops. If other sites link to a URL that now returns 404, the value of those backlinks goes nowhere. A 301 redirect to the closest live page keeps it (see redirects).
• Crawlers waste visits. Googlebot follows internal links to pages that no longer exist. Google says 4xx URLs are not indexed, and URLs that were indexed drop out.
• Internal links to a deleted page leave pages you care about with fewer working links (see internal linking).
• Soft 404s confuse Google. More on those below.

What is the difference between a 404 and a soft 404?

A 404 (or 410) is an honest answer: the page does not exist. Google’s documentation says it treats all 4xx errors (except 429) the same way, and removes already indexed URLs that return them.

A soft 404 is a page that returns status 200 (success) but shows “not found” text or almost no content. Search Console reports these in the page indexing report. The fix is to return a real 404 or 410 when the content is gone, or add real content when the page should exist. Redirecting every dead URL to the homepage also produces soft 404s. Make a helpful custom 404 page that returns a true 404 status.

Server problems are a separate case. Google says 5xx errors slow its crawling, and indexed URLs that keep failing eventually drop out. Fix the server, not the link.

What causes broken links?

• A page was deleted or its URL changed without a redirect.
• A typo in a link, or a missing https:// or trailing slash.
• A site migration or redesign that changed URL patterns.
• An outbound link to a site that closed, moved or restructured.
• An image or file link pointing to something that left the media library.
• Links that Google cannot follow at all. Google follows <a> elements with an href holding a real URL. Links built from onclick handlers or javascript: pseudo-URLs are not reliably extracted.

How do you find and fix broken links, step by step?

1. Crawl your site. Run Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) or a similar crawler. Open the Response Codes tab, filter on Client Error (4xx) and Server Error (5xx), and export the list.
2. Find the source pages. In the crawler, select a broken URL and open Inlinks to see every page that links to it. A broken link is fixed on the page that holds it.
3. Fix internal links first. For each, choose one: update the link to the right live URL, restore the page if you deleted it by mistake, or remove the link. Fix menus, footers and templates first, since one change there repairs hundreds of pages.
4. Redirect moved or merged pages. When a page has a close replacement, add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one, one to one. Do not use 302 for a permanent move: Google says 301 and 308 are strong signals and 302, 303 and 307 weak ones.
5. Check Search Console for URLs Google knows. In the Page indexing report, open “Not found (404)” and “Soft 404”. Google’s help advises fixing only 404s that you link to or list in a sitemap. Remove those URLs from the XML sitemap.
6. Fix outbound links. Replace each dead outside link with a working source, link to an archived copy if the content matters, or remove the link and keep the sentence. Open the new target before you save it.
7. Find 404s that visitors hit. Check analytics or server logs for the most requested 404 URLs. Old URLs with traffic or backlinks get a 301. Check your backlink tool for broken inbound links too (see link reclamation).
8. Recrawl and prevent. Crawl again to confirm the fixes. Then set a monthly or quarterly crawl, and add a redirect plan to every content deletion and migration checklist.

How do you measure the result?

• Crawler report: zero internal 4xx and 5xx links after the fix. This is the number to hit.
• Search Console: the count of “Not found (404)” and “Soft 404” URLs falls after validation (see the page indexing report).
• Analytics: fewer visits landing on your 404 page, and a lower exit rate from pages you repaired.
• Backlink tool: fewer backlinks pointing to dead URLs.

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Redirecting every 404 to the homepage. Google’s soft 404 definition covers pages whose content does not match the error, and visitors get lost. Redirect to the closest relevant page, or let it return a clean 404.
• Deleting a page that has backlinks without a redirect. You lose the link value.
• Blocking 404 URLs in robots.txt. Google’s help says invalid URLs should return a proper 404 response, not be blocked.
• Panicking over every 404 in Search Console. Fix the ones you link to or that have traffic and backlinks. Ignore URLs that should not exist.
• Fixing symptoms in each page, not in the template. A broken menu link repeats on every URL.
• Leaving outbound links unchecked for years. A guide you cited in 2022 can now be a parked domain.

Where can you learn more?

The free digital marketing module of the Fe/male Switch startup school shows how to check a new site for technical faults. Next steps on SEO100: turn dead pages into wins with broken link building, and run a site audit to catch the rest.