How to fix broken links

A practical order of work: find them, decide what each one needs, fix it at the source, and keep new ones from creeping in. Plus the honest answer on how much they matter for SEO.

What is a broken link?

A link whose target doesn't load: the page was deleted or moved (404, 410), the server is failing (5xx), the domain lapsed (DNS error), or the redirects never end (loop). “Dead link” and “link rot” mean the same thing. A widely cited 2024 Pew Research Center study found that 38% of web pages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible a decade later, so every site with an archive has some.

Step 1: find them

Your sitemap. Import it into the dead link checker: every URL you ask search engines to index should return 200 in one hop.
Your key pages. Use “Links on a page” for the home page, top landing pages and anything that earns money. These are where a dead link costs most.
What Google hit. Search Console → Pages → “Not found (404)”, then “Referring page” on each to see where the bad link lives.
Inbound links to dead pages. Backlink tools (Ahrefs' broken backlinks report, for example) show other sites linking to your 404s: the ones most worth redirecting.

Step 2: decide, one link at a time

Use the decision helper alongside. The rule of thumb: fix the link when you control it, redirect when others link to the old URL, and remove only when there's no good destination.

Which fix does this link need?

Where does the broken link point?

Step 3: fix at the source

Internal links: edit the link in the page or template to the final URL. Don't lean on redirects for links you control.
Redirects: add a single 301 from the old URL straight to the new one (in your host's redirect file, server config or CMS redirect plugin). Avoid chains; see 301 vs 302.
Outbound links: find where the content moved (the site's search, or the Wayback Machine for the original wording) and link there; otherwise link a comparable source or unlink the text.
Images and files: re-upload the asset to your own media library rather than hot-linking another site.

Step 4: stop new ones

Never change a URL without adding a redirect in the same release.
Save your key lists in LinkGuard and re-run them monthly; the “changed” marker shows what broke since last time.
Keep a custom 404 page that returns a real 404 status and offers search. Test it with the soft 404 checker.
After a migration, check the full old sitemap against the new site before you celebrate.

Do broken links hurt SEO?

Less than tool vendors imply, and more than zero. Google has said a few broken outbound links won't hurt a site's rankings. The real costs are specific:

Lost link equity: backlinks pointing at a 404 stop passing value until you redirect the URL.
Crawl waste: every internal link to a dead page is a request Googlebot spends on nothing.
Visitor trust: a dead link in a buying guide or support article loses the reader, which is the cost you actually feel.

Questions people ask

How do I fix broken links in WordPress?

Find them with a link checker (paste your sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml or your SEO plugin's sitemap), edit each post to update or remove the link, and use a redirect plugin or your SEO plugin's redirect manager to 301 old URLs to new ones.

Should I remove or redirect broken links?

Redirect when the old URL has backlinks or traffic and a genuinely equivalent page exists. Update the link when you control the page it sits on. Remove only when there is no suitable destination.

How many broken links are too many?

There is no threshold. Prioritise by impact: links on high-traffic pages, links in navigation or templates (which repeat on every page), and 404 pages with inbound links.

What is broken link building?

An outreach tactic: find dead links on other sites that pointed to content like yours, then suggest your page as a replacement. It works best when your page truly replaces what was lost.