Broken links are a fact of life on the web — but they don’t have to be a permanent fixture on your website. Whether you’ve just run your first site audit and discovered dozens of 404 errors, or you’re establishing a maintenance routine to stay ahead of the problem, this guide gives you a complete, practical framework for identifying, categorizing, and fixing every type of broken link. We’ll cover everything from free discovery tools to platform-specific fixes in WordPress and Shopify.
How to Identify Broken Links on Your Website for Free
Before you can fix broken links, you need to find them. Here are the most effective free methods.
Google Search Console
Navigate to Indexing → Pages in Google Search Console. Look for 404 errors in the “Not indexed” section — these are pages on your site that Googlebot tried to crawl and found missing. For each 404 error, click through to see which pages contain links pointing to that broken URL. This gives you both the broken destination and the source page where the link needs to be fixed.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Free Version)
The free version of Screaming Frog crawls up to 500 URLs. After the crawl, filter the results by “Client Error (4xx)” to see all broken internal links. The “Inlinks” tab for each broken URL shows you every page on your site that contains a link to that broken destination.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Free for verified site owners, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools provides a comprehensive broken links report including both internal broken links and broken external links (outbound links from your site to pages on other sites that no longer exist).
Browser Extensions for Individual Pages
For page-by-page checking, the Check My Links extension (Chrome) scans all links on the current page and highlights broken ones in red. This is ideal for auditing specific high-priority pages quickly without running a full site crawl.
The Difference Between Internal and External Broken Links
Broken links fall into two fundamentally different categories, and understanding the distinction shapes how you prioritize and resolve them.
Internal broken links are links from one page on your website to another page on your website that no longer exists or has moved without a redirect. These are your highest priority because you have full control over both sides of the link — the source page where the link appears and the destination that needs to be updated or redirected. Internal broken links directly impair Google’s ability to crawl and index your site, and they interrupt users’ navigation through your content.
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External broken links (outbound links) are links from your pages to pages on other websites that have since moved, been deleted, or gone offline. You have no control over the destination, only over whether to update, replace, or remove the link on your own page. While external broken links don’t directly affect your crawlability in the same way internal ones do, they damage your site’s credibility and user experience — linking out to dead resources makes your content appear outdated and poorly maintained.
Using Google Search Console to Find 404 Errors
Google Search Console is the most authoritative source for broken link data because it shows you exactly what Google encountered when crawling your site — not what a simulation predicts.
The key report is under Indexing → Pages. The “Not indexed” section lists reasons why pages aren’t in Google’s index. The “Not found (404)” status specifically represents pages Google tried to crawl but received a 404 response for these are either broken internal links generating 404 destination pages, or pages that were indexed and then deleted or moved without redirects.
For each 404 URL, use the URL Inspection tool to see more detail, and check the linked pages to identify which source pages contain the broken links. Prioritize fixing 404 errors for pages that had significant traffic or backlinks before they broke — these represent the greatest lost opportunity.
Also check the “Crawl Stats” report under Settings for a broader picture of how many crawl errors Google is encountering on your site over time.
How to Fix Broken Links via 301 Redirects
For broken internal links where the destination page has moved to a new URL, a 301 redirect is the cleanest and most SEO-effective fix. It ensures users and search engines are automatically sent from the old URL to the new one preserving link equity and preventing error pages from appearing.
In WordPress
Install the free Redirection plugin. Navigate to Tools → Redirection. Add a redirect with the old broken URL as the “Source URL” and the correct destination as the “Target URL.” Set the redirect type to 301 (Permanent). Save and test the redirect in your browser.
In Shopify
In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects. Click “Add URL redirect,” enter the old URL path (without the domain) as the source and the new URL path as the redirect. Shopify handles the 301 type automatically.
Via .htaccess (Apache Servers)
For sites on Apache web servers, add redirect rules directly to your .htaccess file: Redirect 301 /old-page-path/ https://www.yoursite.com/new-page-path/. This is the most technically direct method and takes effect immediately without requiring any plugins.
Via Nginx Configuration
For Nginx servers, add redirect directives to your server configuration block: rewrite ^/old-path/$ https://www.yoursite.com/new-path/ permanent;
When Should You Delete a Link Instead of Redirecting It?
Not every broken link warrants a redirect. Sometimes, deleting the link (or replacing it with something better) is the right call.
Delete a link when: the destination content no longer exists anywhere on the web and there is no suitable replacement; the linked content was outdated, inaccurate, or low-quality and you wouldn’t want to recommend any replacement; or the link was incidental to the content and removing it doesn’t change the meaning or quality of the surrounding text.
Redirect the broken URL when: the content has moved to a new URL on your own site; a highly relevant alternative page exists on your own site that serves the same purpose as the deleted page; or the broken URL has received significant external backlinks that you want to preserve by redirecting to the most relevant live page.
Replace the link with a better resource when: a higher-quality, more current version of the linked content now exists elsewhere; the original link target was a mediocre resource and a better alternative is available; or the context of your content would benefit from a more authoritative or specific source.
How to Fix Broken Links in WordPress or Shopify
Platform-specific guidance makes the fixing process more concrete for the most common CMS environments.
WordPress
For broken internal links identified by Screaming Frog or Google Search Console, locate the source page in your WordPress editor and update the link to the correct URL. The Broken Link Checker plugin (by WPMU Dev) actively monitors your WordPress site for broken links and provides a dashboard where you can edit or unlink broken links without opening each post individually. For bulk link updates, the Better Search Replace plugin can find and replace URL patterns across your entire database, useful after URL structure changes.
Shopify
Fix broken internal links in Shopify by editing the page, blog post, or product description where the link appears and updating the URL. For product pages, check that product variant URLs haven’t broken due to inventory changes. Use Shopify’s URL Redirects feature (Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects) for handling deleted product or page URLs. Third-party Shopify apps like SEO Manager include broken link detection and redirect management features.
Managing Broken Outbound Links to Maintain Site Authority
Broken outbound links, links from your pages to dead external content — are often neglected because they don’t affect crawlability. But they matter for content quality and user trust, and managing them is part of responsible site maintenance.
For blog posts and resource pages with many external links, quarterly audits using Screaming Frog or Ahrefs are appropriate. When you find a broken external link, check whether the destination content has moved to a new URL. Try the Wayback Machine (archive.org) to see what the original content was and find current alternatives. Update the link to a live, relevant replacement, or remove it if no replacement serves the same purpose.
For high-traffic evergreen content, broken outbound links are a particularly important quality signal to manage. Content that links to dead resources reads as outdated, reducing its authority and the trust it builds with readers.
Testing Your Fixes: Ensuring Links Lead to the Right Destination
After implementing fixes, verify they’re working correctly before closing the issue.
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For individual redirects, type the old URL directly into your browser’s address bar and confirm you’re taken to the correct destination URL, not to a 404 page, the homepage, or an intermediate redirect destination. Check that the final URL in your browser’s address bar matches the intended canonical URL.
For bulk fixes, re-run your broken link crawler (Screaming Frog or your audit tool) on the affected sections of your site to confirm the previously broken links no longer appear as errors. For redirects specifically, use a redirect checker tool to confirm each redirect returns a 301 response rather than a 302 (temporary redirect) and does not create a redirect chain.
After significant fixes are in place, use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to request reindexing of pages that had many broken inbound links — this prompts Google to re-evaluate those pages with their corrected link equity.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find broken links without using a paid tool?
Use Google Search Console’s Pages report (free, authoritative), Screaming Frog’s free version (up to 500 pages), Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free for verified sites), or the Check My Links browser extension (free, for individual pages). These free tools cover the needs of most small to medium-sized websites.
Are 404 errors bad for my website’s Google ranking?
404 errors themselves are not an automatic ranking penalty. However, 404 errors caused by broken internal links prevent affected pages from being crawled and indexed, and they waste crawl budget on error pages rather than valuable content. Sites with systemic broken link problems tend to rank less well than well-maintained sites, though correlation with other poor maintenance indicators makes isolating the direct ranking impact difficult.
Should I redirect all broken links to my homepage?
No. Redirecting all broken links to the homepage (called a “soft 404”) is considered poor practice. Google may ultimately treat soft 404 redirects as 404 errors anyway when the redirect destination (the homepage) is clearly irrelevant to the original URL. Always redirect broken links to the most topically relevant live page, or to a custom 404 page if no relevant destination exists.
How often should I check my site for dead links?
Monthly automated monitoring is the industry standard for most websites. Large sites (thousands of pages) benefit from weekly monitoring. Minimum recommended frequency is quarterly for small sites with infrequent content changes. After any significant site migration, URL restructure, or content deletion, run an immediate audit regardless of when your last scheduled audit was.
Conclusion
Fixing broken links is one of the most tangible and immediately impactful technical SEO improvements you can make to your website. The process is systematic: find them with the right tools, categorize them by type and priority, resolve each with the appropriate fix (redirect, link update, or removal), and verify the fixes are working. Establish a recurring monitoring routine so new broken links are caught quickly rather than accumulating into a larger problem. A site that consistently maintains clean, functional links is a site that search engines can crawl efficiently and users can trust completely.
