How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website
By Neha
A customer in Indore opens your website on her phone, taps "Price List", and gets a grey page that says "404 Not Found". She does not message you about it. She goes back to Google and taps the next result.
That is what a broken link costs: not a penalty from Google, but a lost customer you never hear about. The good news is that broken links are one of the easiest website problems to find and fix, and you do not need a developer for most of them. This guide shows you how to find broken links on your site with free checkers, how to fix each kind, and how to use redirects properly when a page has moved.
Short answer: Run a broken link checker on your most important pages, then a site-wide check. For each broken link, correct the address, remove the link, or, if the page moved, send the old address to the new page with a permanent (301) redirect. Point redirects straight at the final page, and let pages that truly no longer exist show a 404.
What a broken link is, and why it matters
A broken link is a link that leads to a page that does not load. Most often the server answers with a 404, a code that means "there is nothing at this address". Sometimes it is a server error (a 5xx code), which means the other website itself has a problem.
There are two kinds, and you fix them differently:
- Links to your own pages. You renamed "/services" to "/our-services", deleted a product, or typed a link wrongly. You control both ends, so these are quick to fix.
- Links to other websites. A supplier closed, a news article moved, a directory changed its addresses. You cannot fix their site, but you can update or remove your link.
They matter for two reasons. First, people: a dead "Book now" or "Contact" link is a lost enquiry. Second, Google: it discovers your pages by following links, so a link to a missing page is a dead end. If a page that other websites linked to has vanished, whatever value those links carried is wasted unless you redirect the old address.
A few broken links will not get your site punished. Google treats 404s on pages that genuinely do not exist as normal. But a site full of them looks neglected to visitors, and dead links in your own menus are worth fixing the same day.
How to find broken links on one page
Start with the pages that matter most: the home page, your main service or product pages, and the contact page.
Paste a page address into the broken link checker. It opens the page, collects every link on it (to your own pages and to other sites), and tests up to 40 of them in about 10 to 20 seconds. You see which links work, which redirect somewhere else, and which are broken.
A few things to know when you read the results:
- Broken (404) and server errors are the ones to fix today.
- "Refused us" usually means the other website blocks automated checkers. The link probably works. Open it yourself to be sure.
- Google and LinkedIn links are not checked. Upgrowly never sends automated requests to those sites, so open them by hand.
- If a page has more than 40 links, the rest are counted but not tested. Check that page again after fixing the first batch, or use the site-wide check below.
How to find broken links across your whole site
Checking one page at a time is fine for a five-page site. For anything bigger, use the site-wide link checker. It reads up to 25 pages of your website, starting from the home page, and checks up to 300 different links on them, following each redirect to see where it really ends up.
The report gives you three useful things:
- Broken links to fix, each with the exact pages it appears on, under "Found on". A broken link in your footer appears on every page, and this shows you that it is one fix, not 25.
- Links to update. These still work, but pass through a redirect first. Changing them to the final address shown saves every visitor a hop.
- A CSV file of everything, which you can send to whoever edits your website.
Twenty-five pages covers the whole of most small business sites. For a bigger site, it covers the pages linked from your home page first, which are usually the ones that matter most. Google Search Console is a useful second source: its Page indexing report lists addresses Google itself tried and found missing. Our Google Search Console guide shows where to look. For sites with thousands of pages you need a full crawler; our comparison of Screaming Frog alternatives covers the free and paid options.
How to fix each broken link, step by step
Work through the list one link at a time:
- Open the page where the link appears in your website editor (WordPress, Wix, Shopify or whatever you use).
- Find the link. Search the page text for the words shown in the checker, or look in the menu and footer.
- Decide what it should point to:
- A typo or an old address of a page that still exists: correct the address.
- A page that moved: change the link to the new address, and add a redirect for the old one (see below).
- A page or external site that is gone with no replacement: remove the link, or point it at the closest useful page.
- Save, then run the checker again on that page to confirm the link now works.
A worked example: a dental clinic in Pune renamed its treatment pages from "/root-canal.html" to "/treatments/root-canal" during a redesign. The site-wide check found the old address linked from the footer (so on all 18 pages) and from two blog posts. One footer fix and two edits solved 20 broken links, and a redirect from the old address caught visitors arriving from old WhatsApp shares.
When to use a redirect instead
A redirect is an instruction on your server that says "this address has moved, go here instead". The visitor barely notices; the browser simply loads the new page. Use one whenever a page has moved, because you cannot edit every place the old address lives: printed flyers, WhatsApp chats, bookmarks, directory listings and other websites.
The number in front of the redirect tells Google how permanent the move is:
| Code | Meaning | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| 301 | Moved permanently | Renamed pages, a new website, moving to https, merging two pages |
| 302 | Moved for now | A short-term sale page, maintenance, a test |
| 404 | Not found | Pages that no longer exist and have no replacement |
| 410 | Gone | The same as 404, said a little more firmly |
For almost every small business case, the answer is 301. A common mistake is a plugin or website builder quietly using 302 for a permanent move. Google can eventually work out what you meant, but a 301 says it clearly from the start. Google's own page on redirects and Google Search covers the technical detail.
If you have a list of old and new addresses, the redirect generator turns it into ready-to-paste rules for Apache, Nginx, Cloudflare or Next.js, and flags loops, chains and duplicates before they go live. On ordinary cPanel hosting, the .htaccess generator builds safe rules for forcing https and choosing www or no www. Take a backup of your existing file first.
Do not redirect every missing page to your home page. Visitors who expected a specific page are confused, and Google tends to treat such redirects as a "soft 404", meaning a page that behaves like an error even though it is not labelled as one. Redirect only when there is a genuinely matching new page.
Watch out for redirect chains
A redirect chain is when one redirect leads to another, and another, before reaching the real page. They build up over the years: the site moved to https in 2019, dropped the "www" in 2021, and renamed the Services page in 2024. Now an old link hops three times before it arrives.
Each hop is another trip to the server, which slows the page, especially on mobile data. Google follows up to 10 hops but recommends keeping chains short, and long chains are more likely to break.
The redirect chain checker follows every hop one at a time, shows the code at each step, and tests the four ways people type your address (with and without www, http and https) to check they all end at the same page. To fix a chain, change the first redirect so it points straight at the final address, then check again.
Moving or redesigning your website
Most broken links appear after a redesign or a platform change. Before launch, list every old address (your sitemap is a good source) and match each one to its new page. On launch day, add all the 301 redirects at once, then paste the old addresses into the bulk URL checker, which tests up to 100 at a time and shows which work, which redirect and which are broken. In the weeks after, run the site-wide link checker again and watch Search Console for new "Not found" errors. Keep redirects in place for at least a year, ideally for good.
How often to check
Once a month is enough for most small business websites, plus straight after any redesign, menu change or batch of deleted products. Broken links are one item in a wider health check; our guide on how to check your website's SEO covers the rest, and our guide to internal linking explains how to link your pages so the important ones are easy for visitors and Google to reach.
Frequently asked questions
Do broken links hurt my Google ranking?
A few broken links will not cause a penalty. The real costs are visitors who hit dead ends and leave, Google wasting time on missing pages, and links from other websites to an old page no longer counting for you. Fix broken links on important pages first, and redirect old pages that moved.
What is the best free way to find broken links?
For a single page, a checker that lists every link and its status is enough. For a whole small site, use a site-wide checker that reads several pages and follows redirects. Upgrowly's broken link checker does the first, and the site-wide link checker reads up to 25 pages. Google Search Console also shows "Not found" errors Google has seen.
Should I redirect all 404 pages to my home page?
No. Redirect an old page only when there is a genuinely matching new page, such as the same service under a new address. If nothing matches, let it return a 404, and make sure your 404 page has links to your main sections so visitors can carry on.
When should I use a 302 redirect?
Only when the move is truly temporary and you will bring the old address back, such as a page under maintenance for a few days. For anything permanent, including a new website, renamed pages or moving to https, use a 301.
How long does Google take to notice my fixes?
It varies. Google has to revisit a page to see the change, and busy pages are revisited sooner than quiet ones. For a small site, expect days to a few weeks. Visitors see your fixed links straight away.