How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website Before Visitors and Google Do

Direct answer: To find and fix broken links, check your site's internal and external links for pages, images and files that no longer load, starting with your homepage and most visited pages, then fix each one by restoring the missing page, redirecting to the closest live page, updating the link to the correct address, or removing the link when nothing suitable exists. A broken link is simply a link that leads nowhere useful, and every one you fix removes a dead end that could have cost you a visitor, an enquiry or a sale.

Links break for ordinary reasons: pages are deleted, addresses change, a word is mistyped, a file is moved, or an outside website closes or reorganises. None of this means your site is badly built, but leaving broken links in place signals neglect and interrupts the visitor's journey. This guide explains how to find them without special skills, how to choose the right fix for each one, and how to stop the same problem returning after your next redesign.

Why Links Break, Even on a Well-Maintained Site

The most common cause is a page that was deleted or renamed without updating the links that pointed to it. A service is discontinued, a blog post is tidied away, or a page address is shortened for readability, and the old address stops working while dozens of links still point to it. The same happens with files: a price list, brochure or image is replaced or moved, and every link to the old file location breaks at once.

Typing mistakes cause a quieter kind of breakage. A single wrong letter in an address, a missing slash, or a link copied from a draft instead of the live page sends visitors to an error page that looks identical to a deleted page. External links break for reasons outside your control: the other site may close, move its content, change its structure, or block access. That is why external links need checking too, even though you cannot fix the destination itself.

Redesigns and platform changes are the biggest single risk. Moving to a new design, changing a page structure or switching a content system can alter many addresses at once. Our guide to updating your website safely covers the wider precautions, but for links the rule is simple: never treat an address change as finished until every link that pointed to the old address has been checked.

• Deleted or renamed pages whose old addresses still receive links.
• Moved, renamed or replaced images and downloadable files.
• Typing mistakes in addresses copied by hand.
• External websites that close, move or reorganise their content.
• Redesigns or platform changes that alter many addresses at once.

How to Find Broken Links: Browser Checks, Search Console and Crawlers

Start with the pages that matter most. Open your homepage and main service pages in a browser, click the important links, and watch for error pages, missing images and downloads that fail. This manual check is slow for a whole site, but it is the fastest way to catch the broken links that real visitors are most likely to hit, and it also shows you what the error actually looks like from the visitor's side.

Next, use Google Search Console if your site is connected to it. Its coverage and links reporting can surface pages that search engines found to be missing, and it shows which addresses Google tried to reach. Our guide to reading Google Search Console in 2026 explains where to look, but the principle here is straightforward: treat any missing page that still receives visits or links as a candidate for a fix, not as a number to ignore.

For a full-site check, use a link-checking or crawler tool, which visits every page and reports every link that fails. Many such tools exist in free and paid forms, and their exact features and prices change, so compare current options rather than relying on a single recommendation. A crawler report usually lists the broken address, the page that links to it, and the type of failure, which is exactly what you need to plan fixes. Run a full crawl after any redesign or bulk deletion, and repeat it at least a few times a year on an active site.

Choosing the Right Fix for Each Broken Link

There are four sensible fixes, and the right one depends on why the link broke. If the page or file still should exist, restore it at its original address; this is the cleanest fix when a deletion was accidental. If the content moved permanently, redirect the old address to the closest live page that genuinely matches what the visitor expected, not to a generic page that leaves them guessing.

If the destination still exists but the link itself is wrong, update the link to the correct address. This is the right fix for typing mistakes and for external links that moved to a new address on the other site. If no suitable destination exists and the link adds nothing, remove the link, and rewrite the surrounding sentence so it still reads naturally. Removing a useless link is better than leaving a link that promises something the site cannot deliver.

Avoid the lazy fix of redirecting every broken address to the homepage. A visitor who clicked for a specific service, article or file and lands on a generic homepage has still lost their way, and they are likely to leave. A clear error page with helpful links, covered in our guide to structuring website navigation principles, is kinder than a misleading redirect. You can read more practical maintenance guides on the Asad Webs blog.

Fix in Priority Order: Homepage and Top Pages First

Fixing every broken link on a large site can take time, so work in an order that helps visitors soonest. Start with broken links on the homepage, because every visitor passes through it, then move to your most visited service and product pages, then to pages that receive search traffic, and finally to older blog posts and archive pages. A broken link on a page nobody visits is still worth fixing, but it should not delay a broken enquiry link on your main service page.

Work through your tracking sheet one row at a time, applying the fix, testing the link again, and marking the row complete with the date. Testing matters: a redirect typed with one wrong character simply creates a new broken link, and an updated link pasted from a draft may still point to the wrong place. When the sheet is empty, run the crawler check once more to confirm that the fixes worked and that no new breaks appeared during the work.

Keep the tracking sheet as a record. The example below is an illustrative example of how such a sheet can look, with invented sample rows rather than real site data. The value is not in the numbers themselves but in the habit: every broken link gets a named fix, an owner and a completion date, instead of remaining a vague note to look at later.

For external links, the same priority order applies, with one extra step: check whether the outside page still exists under a new address before you remove the link. A guide, study or supplier page that moved is still worth linking to once the address is corrected, while a page that has disappeared entirely should be replaced with a current source or removed. Keep a note of external links you removed and why, so a future editor does not re-add a dead link from an old draft, and re-check the corrected external links a week later, since outside sites sometimes move again shortly after a change.

Preventing Broken Links After Redesigns and Deletions

Prevention is mostly a matter of timing. Before deleting a page or file, search your site for links to it and decide what each one should point to instead. Before launching a redesign, list every address that will change and prepare redirects for the old addresses that visitors and search engines still use. These two habits prevent most breakage, because they treat links as part of the content, not as an afterthought.

Build a small routine around changes. After every redesign, page deletion or bulk edit, run a fresh link check before announcing the change as finished. Recheck external links a few times a year, since outside sites change without telling you. If your site is edited by several people, agree that nobody deletes a page or renames a file without checking its incoming links first. That single rule, applied consistently, keeps a site's links healthy far more reliably than a yearly panic-driven cleanup.

A small naming habit helps too. When you replace a file, keep its address stable where possible, or update every link to it in the same session, rather than uploading the new file under a different name and leaving the old links pointing at the old location. The same discipline applies to images: if a picture is reused on several pages, changing its filename breaks it everywhere at once, so rename only when necessary and check the affected pages immediately afterwards. These habits cost seconds at upload time and save hours of link repair later, which is why they belong in a prevention routine rather than in a cleanup project.

A Simple Routine You Can Repeat Every Quarter

A quarterly routine keeps link checking small. Each quarter, manually click the key links on your homepage and top pages, glance at Search Console for newly missing pages, and run a full-site crawl if you have changed content since the last check. Fix what you find in priority order, update your tracking sheet, and note the date of the check so the next one is not forgotten.

Over a year, this routine takes far less time than a single large cleanup after years of neglect, and it protects the pages that earn enquiries. Visitors notice the difference even if they cannot name it: links simply work, pages load where expected, and the site feels looked after. That quiet reliability is part of what turns a first visit into an enquiry, and it costs nothing more than a regular, unglamorous check.

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