How Do I Find and Fix Broken Links on My Website?
Find broken website links, record where they occur and choose the right correction, replacement, redirect or removal before retesting.
Part of our guide: How to Improve an Existing Business Website: A 12-Month Plan
Fixing broken links starts with finding both the failed destination and the page that links to it. A list of unavailable URLs is only half the job: you also need to understand what the reader expected to find.
Check internal pages, external resources, downloads and important buttons. Then choose a repair that preserves the purpose of the link rather than sending everything to the homepage.
Build a useful failure list
Use a website crawler or link checker appropriate to the site’s size, and manually test important customer journeys. Keep automated scans within authorised scope and avoid unnecessary load.
Record the source page, anchor text, destination, observed response and test date. Include redirects and unexpected content, not only obvious not-found responses.
Some external sites block automated checks or fail temporarily. Verify the result manually before removing a useful reference.
Distinguish the type of failure
| Finding | Likely repair to investigate |
|---|---|
| Typo in an internal address | Correct the source link |
| Page moved to an equivalent destination | Update the link and consider a redirect from the old URL |
| Removed page with no replacement | Remove or rewrite the reference |
| External resource moved | Find the publisher’s current equivalent |
| Download unavailable | Restore the approved file or provide a relevant replacement |
| Link opens an unrelated page | Correct the destination even if it returns success |
The last row matters: HTTP 200 does not prove that a link is useful or accurate.
Check response and visible content
A destination can display a missing-page message while returning a success response. The soft-404 guide explains that mismatch.
For a moved page, follow the complete redirect journey. Our redirect guide helps distinguish an intentional move from an unnecessary chain or wrong destination.
Ask a developer to investigate technical failures that cannot be reproduced reliably. Keep timestamps and conditions so a temporary outage is not mistaken for a permanent removal.
Repair the source where you control it
If the correct destination is known, update links on your own pages to point directly there. Check shared navigation, footers and reusable components as well as article text.
Google’s link guidance explains the value of crawlable links and descriptive anchors. Retain wording that accurately describes the new destination.
Do not change only the URL while leaving a promise the replacement no longer fulfils. An anchor offering a downloadable checklist should not lead to a general sales page.
Decide what to do with retired content
Use the update, merge or delete guide to decide whether the old information should be restored, consolidated or removed.
A relevant redirect can help people arriving through bookmarks or external links. Where no suitable replacement exists, a genuine not-found response with helpful navigation may be the correct outcome.
Do not redirect every missing address to the homepage merely to make an automated report look cleaner.
Use a repair checklist
For each issue, record:
- where the link appears and what it promises;
- the confirmed failure, including manual verification where needed;
- the chosen correction and its reason;
- the person responsible;
- the date changed;
- the source-to-destination retest result.
For external resources, preserve the original publisher where possible. Do not replace a technical source with an unrelated commercial page simply because it loads.
Re-test the customer journey
Open the source page and follow the actual link after the change. Check the final address, useful content and mobile behaviour.
For downloads, confirm that the file opens and is the intended current version. For a form or booking route, continue far enough to verify the relevant behaviour using safe test data.
The post-launch checklist provides a wider set of checks after a substantial repair batch.
Prevent new isolated or broken routes
When adding or removing content, update its incoming and outgoing links in the same change. Our internal-link map makes those relationships easier to maintain.
Add periodic checks and post-migration reviews to the website improvement plan. Give the report an owner; a regularly generated list is not useful if nobody acts on it.
Check that the repaired link takes readers to the information they expected and lets them continue their task.
Thinking about your own rebuild?
Tell us about your business, your current website and what you would like to improve. We will help you work out the next step.
