Do Broken Links Affect SEO? A Guide to Finding & Fixing Links

Guide to Broken Links: Why Fixing Them Matters for SEO and User Experience

Every website has them, but most ignore them. Broken links. These quiet SEO disruptors affect how your site performs in search results and how people feel when they use it.

Whether it’s a link pointing to a removed page, a renamed URL, or a site that no longer exists, broken links affect SEO and your reputation.

This guide explains why links break, what it means for your website, and how to find and fix broken links before they cost you rankings or trust.

1. What Is a Broken Link and Why Should You Care?

A broken link is simply a hyperlink that no longer goes anywhere useful. Click it, and you’re met with an error page, usually a 404.

This happens when the page being linked to has been deleted, renamed without redirection, or the whole site has gone offline.

Any link may break over time, especially if it’s external. Internally, links break when you restructure pages and forget to update old paths.

But here’s why it matters: broken links frustrate users and interrupt how search engines crawl your site. If a search engine bot follows a link and hits a dead end, it wastes crawl budget.

If a real user hits a dead link, they’re more likely to leave. Broken links aren’t just untidy - they make your site harder to use and harder to rank.

2. How Do Broken Links Affect SEO?

Search engines rely on links to move through your website SEO and assess relevance. A broken link interrupts that journey.

When links pointing to key pages don’t work, those pages may become isolated and harder for bots to discover. That means less visibility in search results.

Broken internal links are particularly damaging. They can suggest poor site maintenance or outdated content.

For external links, if you’re linking out to pages that no longer exist, that also reflects badly - Google considers the quality of outbound links in its assessments.

A lot of broken links on your site can harm your SEO by diluting your link equity and reducing crawler efficiency.

It’s not just about rankings. The broken link may also stop a potential customer from getting the information they were looking for.

That poor user experience can increase bounce rates, which search engines notice. User experience and SEO are closely tied together now - broken links are bad for both.

3. Why Do Links Break in the First Place?

There are lots of reasons links break. Sometimes it’s a simple typo. Other times, the content they point to gets moved or deleted.

Maybe you’ve renamed a product page, or you’ve cleaned out your blog without checking what’s linking to it.

A broken link might also happen because an external site you referenced changed its structure or removed a page without setting up redirects.

Even good websites have broken links - it’s normal. But they become a problem when left unchecked.

A link may work today but lead to a broken page a year from now. Over time, these issues build up. You need to fix broken links regularly, because the web keeps moving.

4. What’s the Real Impact on the User?

Imagine reading an article and coming across a helpful-looking link. You click it, expecting more detail - and instead land on an error page. It’s jarring.

Most users won’t dig around to find what they were looking for - they’ll just leave. That one moment of friction could be the difference between someone buying from you or bouncing.

Users don’t care about your internal link structure or redirect logic. They just want things to work. And when they don’t, it feels sloppy.

Poor navigation, dead ends, and broken internal links all contribute to a bad impression. That’s how broken links affect your site’s credibility, even before SEO is considered.

So, broken links frustrate users. They also waste their time. If a user has to click back or search again because your link didn’t work, they’re more likely to give up.

And every time that happens, you lose more than just a page view - you lose trust.

5. How Can You Find Broken Links on Your Website?

Start with a crawl. Tools like Screaming Frog are great for this. They scan your website, follow every link, and flag anything that leads to a 404 or a redirect loop.

You can sort the results by status code and identify broken links quickly.

Google Search Console is another way. It won’t catch every broken link on your site, but it does highlight pages that are generating errors for users or crawlers. You can use this to zero in on the worst offenders.

Browser extensions like Check My Links can also help. They’re especially useful for checking a single page quickly.

A link report from any of these tools will show you exactly which URLs are broken, where they’re linked from, and what you need to fix.

6. What’s the Best Way to Fix Broken Links?

The fix depends on the link. If it’s an internal link pointing to a page that no longer exists, your first option is to update it to point to a current page.

If that’s not possible, remove the link altogether or redirect it with a 301 to a relevant page. Avoid redirecting everything to the homepage - Google sees that as a soft 404.

For broken external links, you have a few choices. You could remove the link, replace it with a more current source, or link to an archived version if the content is still valuable. The main thing is to stop sending users and bots to dead ends.

Keep a list of broken links to fix, especially if you’re running a large site. Prioritise fixing the broken links that are visited most often or appear on high-traffic pages. Fixing these links protects your SEO value and your credibility.

7. What About Broken Internal Links?

Internal links are the backbone of your site’s structure. They guide users through your content and help search engines understand how pages relate to each other. So when an internal link is broken, it disrupts everything.

Broken internal links can cause crawl issues, reduce the visibility of important pages, and make your site look badly maintained.

If your internal link structure is considered unreliable, it may reduce trust in your entire domain.

If you update URLs or restructure your site, always check for links that might have broken as a result. Updating internal links should be part of your standard content management process. Don’t wait for users or Google to notice - they already have.

8. Do Broken Backlinks Matter?

Yes, a lot. A broken backlink is an inbound link from another website that points to a page on your site that no longer exists. These links were passing authority and trust - until they stopped working.

You might not even know they’re broken unless you check. Use backlink audit tools to see which links are pointing to non-existent pages.

Then, wherever possible, put a 301 redirect in place. This way, the link still leads somewhere useful, and you keep the SEO value.

Sometimes, broken backlinks come from typos or outdated references. If that’s the case, and you can’t control the source, reach out to the site owner and ask them to update it.

That effort can be worth it - because fixing broken backlinks recovers lost value.

9. Can You Still Do Broken Link Building?

Broken link building is a simple concept. You find a broken link on another site in your niche and offer your own relevant content as a replacement. It’s been around for years - but it still works, if you do it properly.

Start by scanning sites in your industry for dead outbound links. Tools like Ahrefs or Screaming Frog can do this. Then look for links that used to point to content similar to what you already have - or could easily create.

When you contact the site owner, be helpful, not salesy. Let them know there’s a broken link, and suggest your page as a fix.

Most people appreciate the heads-up and will link back if your content adds value. It’s a slow process but can be effective for building high-quality backlinks without gaming the system.

10. How Often Should You Check Your Site for Broken Links?

At minimum, run a full site check every quarter. If you’re publishing content regularly or updating your site often, monthly checks are better.

Broken links can appear after migrations, redesigns, content updates, or platform changes - sometimes without you even realising it.

It’s worth making this part of your ongoing SEO maintenance. Don’t treat broken links as a one-off cleanup job. Keep it in your workflow. Use alerts or automated tools to notify you when links break.

The longer you leave broken links live, the more harm they can do. They damage trust, rankings, and user experience.

Fix them as soon as you find them, and your site will stay cleaner, stronger, and easier to navigate for both users and search engines.

Key Points to Remember

• Broken links are links that lead to pages that no longer exist.

• Internal and external links can break, affecting both SEO and user trust.

• Broken links affect SEO by disrupting crawls, wasting link equity, and lowering site authority.

• User experience suffers when people hit broken links, especially on high-traffic pages.

• Use tools like Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, or browser extensions to find broken links.

• Always try to fix broken links by updating URLs or using a 301 redirect where needed.

• Broken internal links are especially bad for SEO and should be fixed quickly.

• Broken backlinks waste authority - redirect or recover them where possible.

• You can still use broken link building as a link strategy, if you do it with quality and relevance.

• Check for broken links on your website regularly - it’s ongoing maintenance, not a one-off job.

Is your website due for a link health check? If it’s been more than a few months, it probably is.