How to check broken links? Updated 2026 Guide

Broken links are an SEO issue that seem minor at first, but they cause more harm the longer they sit. Rankings slip, crawl budget gets wasted, and users hit dead ends instead of pages that load. It’s like a slow leak that goes unnoticed. Most people have clicked a broken link themselves, so the frustration is easy to imagine. In 2026, with AI‑generated content and faster publishing cycles, this happens more often than many teams expect. To maintain site health, it’s important to know how to check for broken links efficiently and consistently.

The tricky part is that traffic or trust often drops sooner than people think. If you run a growing site, a reliable way to spot broken links matters more as it scales. That’s why this guide explains how to check links and pick tools that fit real workflows. It will help you learn how to check for broken links using manual and automated approaches.

It covers manual checks, automated crawlers, AI‑assisted workflows, and ongoing monitoring. It also explains how broken links affect SEO, when teams fix them, and how many handle this without developer help.

Why Broken Links Matter More Than Ever

Broken links aren’t just a small annoyance anymore. They’re often read as a clear technical SEO signal. When links start returning 404 or 410 errors, especially on internal pages, search engines tend to notice fast. If it keeps happening, it can look like the site isn’t being looked after. And search engines don’t wait around for long.

What’s really changed is the scale of it all. Sites publish faster, change URLs more often, rely heavily on automation, and regularly update layouts and templates. There’s rarely a real pause. In that setup, link decay is much more likely. One broken link might not seem like a big deal. But when dozens appear inside key templates, like navigation menus, footers, or comparison tables, the problems stack up. Crawl efficiency across the site can quietly drop. Google often sets crawl budget based on how reliable a site seems. Broken links waste that budget by sending crawlers to dead ends instead of product pages, guides, or updated resources, which usually isn’t what you want.

From the user side, broken links stop momentum right away. Someone clicking a comparison, pricing page, feature overview, or docs link expects the next page to load. When an error page shows up instead, trust can drop quickly, and more people leave. On mobile, where patience is already short, this tends to hit even harder.

Taylor Scher explains the risk clearly:

Broken links create a direct path to higher bounce rates, lost crawl equity, and a poorer user experience.

Recent data also shows how common this issue is on real websites.

For SEO teams, broken links slowly weaken internal linking. Authority flow drops, and some important URLs get crawled less often than they should. Rankings usually don’t fall overnight, but they can slide over time. And according to Backlinko, top-ranking pages have 3.8 times more backlinks than lower results, which, in my view, makes protecting link equity a much bigger deal.

Types of Broken Links You Need to Watch

Not all broken links act the same, and those differences often guide priorities. Understanding the types usually helps you pick the right broken link checker (I think it matters). Link failures can come from different causes and hit pages in different ways, which changes how you plan fixes and decide what to fix first (for you).

Internal broken links

The sneaky part is how much impact these links can have. They send users from one page on a site to another page that no longer exists, and they often cause real damage. This usually happens because the site owner controls them (annoying, I know), which also means they’re usually easier to fix. They often show up after URL changes, content cleanup, CMS migrations, or slow taxonomy updates. It’s frustrating, and very common.

Internal links pass authority and help crawlers move through things like menus, so breaks matter. When a link breaks, both signals usually stop. Pages can end up orphaned, or key content never gets found. On large sites, one broken header or footer link can repeat across thousands of pages, a small issue that, in my view, hits hard.

Googlebot treats broken internal links as a signal of poor site maintenance.

External broken links

Sometimes outside sites remove or change pages, and that’s not surprising. When it happens, those links can quietly hurt trust and the user experience, and they’re often hard to manage. External links support topical relevance, so when they break, content quality can slip, I think, but it happens.

Broken backlinks

These happen when other sites link to pages on your site that don’t exist anymore. Ahrefs says that over 66% of links across the web break over time, which sounds crazy but explains why this affects most sites. The main problem is the lost SEO value, even when someone meant to recommend you. In my opinion, broken backlinks are often worth fixing because the authority is already pointing to you; a simple redirect can recover link equity that took years to build.

Link rot is a real problem on the web, with many pages and links disappearing over time.

How to Check Broken Links Manually

One thing you notice right away with manual checks is how fast context issues appear. On smaller sites, or on pages that really matter like landing pages and checkout flows, this method often catches problems that tools miss. It does take time, but it can uncover things like anchor text that feels a bit off, or links that load without errors yet send people somewhere unexpected. You usually spot that the moment you click, which is why this approach is so useful.

Here’s a simple process many teams use to check for broken links manually:

1. Start by opening the pages that actually bring in traffic or revenue in a browser
2. Click through internal links, along with any external links on the page, since issues often show up that way
3. Watch what happens when a link leads to a 404, 410, or a soft error as you move through the page
4. Check redirected links and make sure the final destination still makes sense

Manual checking works especially well during quality assurance, like right before publishing, when changes are still easy to make. Marketing teams often test links by hand in email campaigns, PPC landing pages, or high-stakes sales pages. Even one broken link can hurt conversions, so there’s not much room for mistakes.

This approach is best for new blog posts or high-traffic pages. Still, it doesn’t scale very well. Repeating the same checks can lead to human error, and on large sites, broken links can hide deep in pagination or filters, such as an old link buried several clicks into a product category.

Using a Website Broken Link Checker Tool

A website broken link checker scans a site in much the same way a search engine does. It goes page by page, follows every link it finds, and records any errors along the way. There’s nothing secret happening in the background, but it’s still one of the fastest ways to find broken links at scale. That speed matters most for sites that publish often, where URLs and page structures change all the time.

Modern crawlers don’t stop at 404 errors. They also point to redirect chains, server problems, and links blocked by robots.txt. Many tools show the exact source page and anchor text, which usually lets content teams fix issues without digging through pages or guessing what went wrong. In real work, that can save hours.

SEO teams often use tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider (good for deep technical checks), Ahrefs Site Audit and Semrush Site Audit (strong for sorting issues and reports), Sitebulb (helpful for visual views), and SE Ranking (popular for ongoing monitoring). Results may differ slightly, but they usually agree on the main problems. You can also explore Surfer SEO vs Ahrefs Which Tool Is Best For You in 2026 for more context on how these tools compare.

Rather than following a strict checklist, the process is simple: enter a URL, run a crawl, filter by error codes like 404 or 5xx, and export the report. Simple, but it works.

Here is what teams usually track. Straight to the point.

Consistency often makes the biggest difference. Quarterly scans are rarely enough now. Many fast-moving sites run weekly crawls, and some use daily automated checks, especially when new content keeps changing internal links.

Checking Broken Links with Google Search Console

One of the most useful things about Google Search Console is the context it gives for how Google actually sees your site. It’s free, it’s helpful, and it has limits you should know about. It mainly shows issues Google hits while crawling, so some edge cases won’t appear. That’s normal. Even so, seeing how crawling and indexing work is often what matters most.

So which reports tend to bring these problems to the surface? You’ll likely switch between a few of them:

• The Pages report and indexing status, which overlap more than many people expect
• Crawl stats, especially when you’re looking for patterns over time

A good starting point is Not found (404) and soft 404 errors. They’re listed separately but are often related. Blocked resources also deserve a look, especially if they affect how pages render.

Search Console really helps with prioritization. The errors shown are already affecting real crawling and indexing. If Google flags a broken link, it tried to reach that page and failed. That usually grabs my attention. Those are the fixes I start with, like a 404 on an important category page.

Building a Scalable Broken Link Workflow

For SaaS and e‑commerce teams, broken link checks work best when they’re part of daily routines, not a once‑a‑year scramble. Automation helps a lot, especially as sites get bigger. Without a clear workflow, small issues pile up and turn into cleanup tasks no one wants. I’ve seen this happen more than once.

A scalable workflow usually includes a few practical habits. Links are checked before publishing, often right inside the CMS. Many teams also run scheduled site crawls weekly or monthly. Why wait to trip over errors when alerts can catch them early? Some teams block off time for monthly cleanup sprints so fixes don’t linger.

Clear ownership often matters more than tools. Content editors manage in‑article links, while SEO teams and developers handle redirects and templates. This clarity prevents gaps between teams, which is more common than people think. You can learn more about automation workflows in SaaS SEO Tools, which explains scalable processes for maintaining site quality.

According to Aleyda Solis from Search Engine Journal, a source known for technical SEO insights, issues like broken links grow fast. Ongoing monitoring makes fixes easier and lowers stress.

Many AI content platforms now check links before anything goes live, helping teams keep quality steady even when output increases quickly.

AI, Automation, and Broken Links in 2026

AI has changed how links are created, and it often adds more risk than before. A lot of AI‑generated content quietly includes URLs that are wrong or already outdated. This usually comes from models trained on older versions of the web, and the problem grows faster than many people expect.

One clear takeaway comes from new research: AI search assistants generate up to three times more broken links than Google (SoftMarketSolution). Once bad links show up, they often get reused again and again across new pages.

So what does this mean in real terms? Modern SEO stacks rely heavily on automation. One helpful move is protecting internal linking logic, since it’s easy to break and hard to fix later. Strong setups keep an eye on pages over time, not just once. It also helps to suggest replacement links based on topic fit, not only keywords. And why wait until after publishing to check links?

For teams using content automation, broken link checks are now part of everyday quality control, usually right before a page goes live.

Fixing Broken Links the Right Way

Finding broken links is only part of the job, and how you fix them often matters more day to day. A rushed or messy fix can cause more problems than leaving the link alone, which happens more than people want to admit (yeah, it’s frustrating). In many cases, a poor fix just confuses visitors. You’ve probably run into that yourself.

Best practices still matter, but context comes first:

• Update links so they point to the most relevant live page for that topic, not just any page
• Use 301 redirects when content has clearly moved to a new URL
• Remove the link entirely if there’s truly no good replacement
• Reclaim broken backlinks, which often means setting up redirects and is easy to miss

Why send everything to the homepage? That usually confuses users and search engines. Matching the original intent works better. Keep redirect paths short, test your changes, and then recrawl pages to confirm a specific article link now loads correctly.

Put This Into Practice

Broken links aren’t just a small technical issue. They shape how much people, and search engines, trust a site, and most folks notice it the moment they hit a bad link. In 2026, search engines favor sites that stay clean without broken pages. Broken links show up more often than many teams expect and can cause damage over time. Internal links are often the biggest issue and send users to dead ends. Automated tools help because manual checks take time, and AI‑generated content adds risk.

What’s a practical way to catch broken links without slowing everyone down? Build link checks into the content workflow, like quality control, so it’s part of everyday work, not a last‑minute fix. Ultimately, learning how to check for broken links regularly will help your site stay healthy and maintain strong SEO performance.