A broken link is a small thing that says a big thing. To a reader, clicking through to a 404 is a tiny betrayal: they trusted your link and it went nowhere. To a search engine, a page full of dead links reads as neglected, and neglected sites don't inspire confidence. Neither effect is catastrophic on its own. But they add up, and they're entirely preventable.
Our links check looks at the sanity of your internal and external links and does a sampled broken-link scan. It checks a capped number rather than hammering every link on the page, which keeps the audit fast and polite.
What "link hygiene" covers
Three related things:
- Broken links (404s and errors). Links pointing to pages that no longer exist or return server errors.
- Internal link health. Whether your pages actually link to each other sensibly, so readers and crawlers can move through the site.
- External link sanity. Whether your outbound links go somewhere real and appropriate.
Why broken links matter
- Readers bail. A dead link in the middle of a helpful article breaks the experience and erodes trust. Some readers leave entirely.
- Crawlers waste effort. Search engines have a finite appetite for crawling your site. Sending them to dead ends spends that budget on nothing.
- It signals neglect. A site riddled with 404s looks unmaintained, and freshness and quality are things engines (and AI answer engines) care about.
- Lost internal authority. Internal links pass signals between your pages. A broken internal link is a connection that no longer carries any weight.
Internal links: the underrated half
Most link advice obsesses over broken external links, but your internal linking is where you have the most control and the most to gain. Good internal linking:
- Helps readers discover related content (which is exactly why these check explainers cross-link to each other and back to the audit).
- Spreads ranking signals from your strong pages to newer ones.
- Gives crawlers and AI engines a map of how your content fits together.
A practical habit: whenever you publish something, add a link to it from one or two relevant existing pages, and link out from the new page to related ones. It compounds over time.
How to find and fix broken links
- Run a crawl. An audit (like ours) or a dedicated crawler will surface dead links. Because checking every link is expensive, sampling catches the systemic problems without the wait. If the sample is clean, you're probably fine; if it's full of 404s, you have a pattern to chase.
- Fix or remove. For each broken link: update it to the correct URL, point it somewhere equivalent, or remove it if the destination is genuinely gone.
- Redirect what you move. When you move or delete a page, add a 301 redirect so inbound links (yours and other people's) don't break. This is the single biggest source of self-inflicted 404s.
- Recheck periodically. External links rot over time as sites you linked to go down or restructure. A quarterly pass keeps things healthy.
Don't over-engineer it
A caveat, because link-checking can become a rabbit hole: a handful of broken external links on a large site is normal and not worth losing sleep over. The web rots; you can't prevent other people's sites from disappearing. Focus your energy on broken internal links (those are your fault and your fix) and on redirecting pages you move. Sampling reflects this philosophy: catch the patterns, don't chase every last edge case.
This pairs with URL structure (clean, stable URLs break less often) and indexability (a working link to a noindexed page still "works" but won't rank).
Common mistakes
- Deleting or moving pages without redirects, orphaning every link that pointed to them.
- Ignoring internal broken links while fixating on external ones.
- Letting old campaign or footer links rot. These appear sitewide, so one broken link multiplies.
- No internal linking strategy at all, leaving new pages stranded with nothing pointing to them.
FAQ
Do broken links directly hurt my rankings?
Not as a direct penalty, but they waste crawl budget, harm user experience, and signal neglect, all of which indirectly drag you down. The reader-trust cost is reason enough.
How often should I check for broken links?
A quarterly pass is plenty for most sites, plus a check any time you move or delete pages. External links rot slowly; internal ones break when you change your own structure.
Why does the audit only check some links, not all?
Checking every link on every page is slow and hammers the sites you link to. Sampling a capped number catches systemic problems efficiently. If the sample is healthy, the rest usually is too.
What should I do with a broken external link?
Update it to the current URL if the content moved, replace it with an equivalent source, or remove it. Don't leave readers clicking into dead ends.
Key Takeaways
- Broken links carry no direct ranking penalty, but they waste crawl budget, break the reader experience, and signal a neglected site to both search and AI answer engines.
- Broken internal links matter more than broken external ones because they are your fault and your fix, and each one drops a signal that would otherwise pass between your pages.
- The single biggest source of self-inflicted 404s is moving or deleting a page without adding a 301 redirect.
- A quarterly broken-link pass, plus a check every time you move or delete pages, is enough for most sites; external links rot slowly while internal links break when you change your own structure.
Want a quick read on your link health, internal and external? Run a free audit. We sample your links and flag the broken ones. More in the SEO explainers.
