A broken link is a hyperlink that leads to a page that no longer exists. You click it, you wait, and instead of the page you wanted, you get a “404 Page Not Found” error or a blank screen with an apology. The link is still on the page, still looks clickable, still promises something. It just does not deliver. It is a door painted on a wall.
People also call it a dead link, which is a good name, because that is exactly how it behaves. It points at nothing. And here is the part that makes broken links worth caring about: every one of them is a tiny broken promise on your website, and both your customers and Google keep count.
Let me explain what actually causes them, how they quietly hurt your rankings, and how to find and fix them without turning it into a weekend project.
A broken link is a link that leads to a dead page
A link has one job: take someone from one place to another. When the destination is gone, moved, or misspelled, the link breaks. The browser asks the server for the page, and the server answers with a status code that means “not here.”
The most common one is a 404, which means the page was not found. You will also run into a 410 (the page is gone on purpose and not coming back), a 500 (the server itself fell over), and a DNS error (the whole domain no longer resolves). Google’s own guide to HTTP status codes and errors walks through what each one signals. For a regular visitor, the difference does not matter much. A dead end is a dead end. But for fixing the problem, the code tells you what went wrong.
The key thing to understand is that a broken link is not a broken page. The page you are on works fine. It is the thing the link points at that is missing. That distinction matters, because it changes who can fix it.
Internal and external broken links are not the same problem
There are two kinds of broken links, and they live in different neighborhoods.
An internal broken link points to another page on your own site. Maybe you deleted an old service page. Maybe you changed a URL and forgot the twelve places that linked to it. Either way, this one is your responsibility, and the good news is you have full control to fix it.
An external broken link points to a page on someone else’s site. You linked to a helpful article two years ago, and last month they redesigned everything and quietly buried that URL. Now your link is a dead end, and nobody sent you a memo. You cannot fix their site, but you can update or remove the link on yours.
Both hurt the experience. Internal broken links are worse for your SEO, because they waste crawl budget inside your own house and leak the value that should be flowing between your pages. External ones are more of a slow leak of trust, since they make your content look neglected.
Broken links usually come from a few boring causes
Nobody breaks a link on purpose. It happens quietly, usually from one of a handful of ordinary mistakes. Here are the usual suspects and what to do about each.
| Common cause | What happened | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Deleted page | You removed a page but left links pointing to it | Redirect the old URL, or update the links |
| Moved or renamed page | The URL changed and old links still use the old address | Add a 301 redirect from old to new |
| Typo in the URL | A misspelled or malformed link was published | Correct the link |
| External site changed | The page you linked to was moved or removed | Update the link or drop it |
| Expired domain | The whole site you linked to went offline | Remove the link or find a replacement |
| Broken image or file path | A moved image or PDF returns a 404 | Fix the file path or re-upload the file |
Notice how ordinary this list is. There is no exotic villain here. Broken links are almost always the residue of normal website changes that nobody cleaned up afterward. Websites are living things, and things that live tend to leave a mess.
There is even a name for the slow, natural version of this. It is called link rot, and it describes how links across the web decay as pages disappear over the years. Your site is not immune. Left alone, it rots too.
Broken links quietly cost you rankings and trust
So do broken links hurt SEO? Yes, though not in the dramatic way people imagine. Google is not going to blacklist your site because of one dead link. But broken links do real damage in three slower ways.
First, user experience. Someone clicks, hits a 404, and now they are annoyed. Some of them hit the back button and go to a competitor. A confusing website does not create curiosity. It creates a back button. Every dead end raises the odds that a visitor leaves before doing the thing you wanted them to do.
Second, wasted crawl and lost link equity. When Google crawls your site, it follows links. Point it at dead pages and you are spending its attention on nothing. Worse, internal links are how value flows between your pages. A link to a deleted page sends that value into a void. It is like installing plumbing that drains into the yard.
Third, the trust signal. A site full of broken links reads as neglected. Both people and search engines pick up on that. It suggests nobody is maintaining the place, and neglected sites do not earn the benefit of the doubt. This is one of the things we check in any technical SEO audit, because it is a cheap problem to fix and a surprisingly expensive one to ignore.
A marketing company with broken links is showing you its résumé
Here is my one strong opinion for this post, and I stand by it. If you are evaluating a marketing company or SEO agency, run their own website through a link checker before you sign anything.
Their own site is the easiest client they will ever have. No approval chain. No owner asking if the logo can be bigger. No committee. If a company that sells search visibility cannot keep its own links working, that is not a small detail. That is the audition, and they are failing it in front of you. A marketing company with broken links is like a dentist with one giant tooth and a dream.
It is not about perfection. Everyone ships a dead link now and then. It is about whether anyone is paying attention. Attention is the whole product.
How to find broken links before your customers do
You cannot fix what you cannot see, and clicking every link by hand is a fine plan if you have three pages and no life. For everyone else, here is how to find broken links the practical way.
Google Search Console. This is the first place I look, and it is free. The Page Indexing report flags “Not found (404)” URLs that Google tried to crawl. You can also drop any URL into the URL Inspection tool to see how Google sees that exact page. Real crawl data beats guessing, even confident guessing.
A crawler or broken link checker. Tools that crawl your whole site will map every link and flag the dead ones in one pass. A broken link checker is the fastest way to catch problems across a large site, including the external links you forgot you ever added. Run one on a schedule, not once a year in a panic.
Your own analytics. If a specific 404 page is getting traffic, something is linking to a URL that does not exist. That is a clue worth chasing. Do the same review when you run a full website audit, since broken links tend to travel in packs with other neglected issues.
How to fix broken links: update, redirect, or remove
Once you have your list, fixing broken links comes down to three moves. Pick the right one for each link.
- Update the link. If the page moved and you know the new address, just point the link at the correct URL. This is the cleanest fix. Do this for typos and for external pages that simply moved.
- Redirect the old URL. If the broken link is an internal page you deleted or renamed, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the best matching live page. Google’s documentation on redirects explains how a 301 passes signals to the new page. This is how you rescue links and any value pointing at the old address.
- Remove the link. If a page is truly gone and there is no good replacement, and nothing meaningful points at it, just delete the link. A clean sentence beats a link to nowhere. Not every dead end deserves a rescue mission.
For internal links, updating and redirecting do most of the work. For external links you cannot control, your realistic options are update it to a live source or remove it. You are not going to fix someone else’s website by wishing.
One caution: do not redirect everything to your homepage out of habit. A visitor expecting a specific article and landing on your homepage is confused, not helped. Redirect to the closest relevant page, or serve an honest 404 that helps them find their way. Related links flow value the way you intend, so this also matters for how your backlink profile and internal links pass authority around the site.
How to keep broken links from coming back
Fixing them once feels great for about a month. Then a new batch appears, because your site keeps changing. A little discipline keeps the problem small.
- Redirect before you delete. Any time you remove or rename a page, set the redirect in the same breath. Future you will be grateful.
- Check links after every migration or redesign. Moving a site is the single most reliable way to manufacture hundreds of broken links at once.
- Run a link check on a schedule. Monthly for most small sites. It takes minutes and catches external rot you would never notice otherwise.
- Keep an eye on Search Console. The 404 reports are basically a free maintenance to-do list, delivered by Google.
None of this is glamorous. Broken links are the flossing of website maintenance. Boring, easy to skip, and obvious the moment you neglect it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a broken link in simple terms?
A broken link is a hyperlink that leads to a page that no longer works. When you click it, you get an error like “404 Page Not Found” instead of the content you expected. The link still looks normal, but its destination is missing, moved, or misspelled.
What causes a broken link?
Most broken links come from ordinary website changes. A page gets deleted, a URL gets renamed, someone makes a typo in the address, or an external site you linked to takes its page down. Site redesigns and migrations are especially good at creating them in bulk.
Do broken links hurt SEO?
Yes, though gradually rather than as a sudden penalty. Broken links waste the crawl budget Google spends on your site, leak the link value that should flow between your pages, and create a poor experience that sends visitors to the back button. A few here and there will not sink you, but a pile of them signals a neglected site.
What is the difference between a broken link and a dead link?
There is no real difference. “Dead link” is just another name for a broken link. Both describe a hyperlink whose destination no longer loads, usually returning a 404 or similar error.
How do I find broken links on my website?
Start with Google Search Console, which is free and flags 404 URLs Google has tried to crawl. For a full picture, run a broken link checker or site crawler that maps every link and flags the dead ones, including external links you may have forgotten.
How do I fix a broken link?
You have three options. Update the link to point at the correct address, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to a relevant live page, or remove the link entirely if there is no good replacement. Internal links usually get updated or redirected, while external ones get updated or removed.
What is a 404 error?
A 404 is the HTTP status code that means “page not found.” The server received the request but has no page at that address. It is the most common result of clicking a broken link, and it is the code Google uses to understand that a page is missing.
Should I redirect every broken link?
No. Redirect a broken internal link when there is a genuinely relevant page to send people to. If a page is truly gone with no good match, an honest 404 or removing the link is better than dumping visitors on your homepage, which only confuses them.
Fix the dead links, then worry about the fancy stuff
Broken links are not the most exciting problem on your website. They are also one of the cheapest to fix and one of the most embarrassing to leave sitting there. Every dead link is a small broken promise, and they add up faster than anyone expects.
If you are not sure how many are hiding on your site, that is a normal place to start. Run a free audit and get a plain read on the broken links, slow pages, and crawl issues you cannot see from the front door. Fix the doors that go nowhere first. The fancy stuff can wait its turn.