What Is a Broken Link? Impact on SEO, How to Find Them, and Repair Steps
Published:
Last Updated:
Category: SEO & Content
Authors: Shusaku Yosa
Published:
Last Updated:
Category: SEO & Content
Authors: Shusaku Yosa
When you run a website, broken links occur before you know it. A link that does not reach the target page when clicked harms the user experience and also affects the site's credibility. You may be told that "broken links lower search rankings," but in reality Google's official stance and the practical interpretation are a bit calmer. This article organizes and explains broken links from the basics of what they are, through their real impact on SEO, how to find them, and the repair steps.
A broken link refers to a state where clicking a link on a web page does not reach the target page, or the page cannot be accessed. In many cases, a "404 Not Found (the page you are looking for was not found)" error is displayed at the destination. It is also called a dead link.
404 is a status code meaning "not found," indicating that the requested page does not exist on the server. Besides this, cases where a page is not displayed due to trouble with the destination server or an access permission problem are also included in broken links in the broad sense.
The broken links a site operator should be aware of can be broadly divided into two types.
Broken links occur for the following reasons. Many happen naturally in the course of daily operation and are difficult to fully prevent, so periodic checking is a prerequisite.
The relationship between broken links and SEO is often exaggerated. Here, based on Google's official stance, we organize what is a problem and what you don't need to worry too much about.
To conclude, even if a 404 error occurs, it does not itself directly lower search rankings. Google explains in its official help, in effect, that generally a 404 error occurring does not affect a site's search performance. A deleted page returning 404 or 410 is treated as a normal state that occurs naturally on the web. Even when a backlink is returning 404, it does not put you at a disadvantage in search results.
On the other hand, leaving broken links unaddressed can indirectly harm SEO. Mainly through the following three paths.
In other words, the problem with broken links is less "the 404 itself" and more the secondary effects it has on user experience and crawling. You don't need to fear it excessively, but it is desirable to fix rather than leave it.
Broken links can be found by several methods, from visual checking to dedicated tools. Use them according to the scale and purpose of your site.
The most basic method is to actually click the link in the browser and confirm whether it displays normally. It requires no special tools and even beginners can do it, but because it takes effort on sites with many pages, it suits small sites or page-by-page checks before publishing.
In Search Console, you can check the 404s that Google detected. Opening "Not found (404)" from the admin screen's "Indexing" → "Pages" → "Why pages aren't indexed" lets you check the details of the relevant URLs. However, note that what you can check in Search Console is backlinks and internal links (in-site links); outbound link breakage to external sites cannot be checked.
If you want to check the whole site at once, a dedicated tool is efficient. There are options such as online tools that detect broken links inside and outside the site in bulk just by entering a URL (like dead-link-checker.com), desktop apps for large sites (like Screaming Frog SEO Spider), and Ahrefs' broken link checker. If you want to quickly check just the one page being displayed, a Chrome extension (like Check My Links) is also convenient.
If it is a WordPress site, you can automatically monitor internal and external links with a plugin such as "Broken Link Checker." Because you can receive email notifications when a broken link occurs, it greatly reduces the effort of finding them. It is especially suited to sites with many article additions and rewrites.
Broken links are not done once found; handling them means repairing them correctly. Handle the broken links you find by judging them with the following three patterns.
Once the fix is done, always re-check and confirm that the broken link has been resolved.
If a backlink you receive from another site is broken due to a URL change on your site's side, you are left in a state of having lost valuable SEO evaluation. By identifying the broken backlink with a tool like Ahrefs and applying a 301 redirect from that URL to an existing related page, you can recover the lost external evaluation.
If you cannot fix everything at once, setting priorities by the following criteria is efficient.
Internal link breakage often takes higher priority than external link breakage, but external link breakage also harms the article's credibility by preventing readers from reaching reference information, so it should not be left unaddressed.
Broken links are not done once fixed; it is important to prevent them continuously in the course of operation.
A broken link is a state where clicking does not reach the destination, and it is mostly displayed as a 404 error. The 404 itself does not directly lower search rankings, but it can indirectly harm SEO through user experience, credibility, and crawl efficiency. Find them regularly with Search Console or dedicated tools, and handle them with the three patterns of fixing to the correct URL, 301 redirect, and deletion. Systematizing continuous checking rather than one-off checks leads to healthy site operation and the maintenance of SEO evaluation.
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