How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website

You share your website link on WhatsApp, a customer clicks through, and instead of your services page they see an error message. Or a visitor reads your blog post, clicks a link to learn more, and lands on a page that no longer exists. That is a broken link, and it happens on far more Nigerian business websites than most owners realise.

A broken link is a link that points to a page that cannot be found. It might lead to a page you deleted, a page whose address changed, or a page on another website that no longer exists. To your visitor, it looks like your website is neglected. To Google, it looks like your website is not well maintained. Either way, it costs you trust, and it can cost you customers.

What Is a Broken Link?

A broken link is any link on your website that does not take the visitor where it promises to go. When someone clicks it, the browser shows an error, most commonly a 404 error, which means the page was not found on the server.

Broken links come in two types. Internal broken links point to pages on your own website. For example, your homepage links to a services page that you renamed or deleted. External broken links point to other websites, such as a partner's site or a news article that has since been removed.

Both types are a problem, but internal broken links are the more urgent one, because they are entirely within your control and they directly affect your own visitors.

Why Broken Links Hurt Your Business

It is tempting to dismiss a few broken links as a small problem. After all, your homepage still works, and most visitors may never click the broken one. But the damage adds up.

First, they frustrate visitors and lose enquiries. A visitor who clicks a link expects to arrive somewhere useful. When they hit an error page instead, many will simply leave your website and try a competitor. This is especially costly when the broken link sits on an important page, such as a link from a blog post to your contact page, or from your services page to a booking form.

Second, they damage trust in your business. Your website is often the first impression a customer gets of your business. A website full of broken links sends a quiet message that the business behind it may not pay attention to detail. A clean, working website, on the other hand, builds confidence before you ever speak to the customer.

How to Find Broken Links on Your Website

Finding broken links by clicking every link on your website by hand is slow and unreliable, especially if your site has many pages. Fortunately, there are tools that do the checking for you.

Step 1: Use a broken link checker tool

A broken link checker scans your website, follows every link it finds, and reports the ones that return an error. This gives you a complete list to work through, instead of guessing.

Joetech's Free Broken Link & 404 Checker can scan a page on your website and show you which links are working and which ones are broken. It is a good starting point if you have never checked your site before. There are also other free tools online that can scan a whole website at once, and SEO plugins for WordPress can report broken links as part of their regular checks.

Step 2: Check Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows how your site appears in search results. Its coverage and pages reports can show you pages on your site that return errors, including pages Google tried to visit but could not find. If you have not set up Google Search Console yet, do it. It is free, and it is one of the most useful tools available to any website owner.

Step 3: Check your most important pages by hand

Automated tools are excellent, but a quick manual check of your most important pages is still worth doing. Visit your homepage, your services pages, your pricing page, and your contact page, and click the links on them. Pay special attention to links in your navigation menu, your footer, and any call-to-action buttons, because these are the links your visitors click most often.

Broken links are not a one-time problem. Links break over time as pages change and external sites disappear. Aim to check your website for broken links at least once every few months, and always check after a redesign, after deleting pages, or after changing page addresses.

How to Fix Broken Links Step by Step

Once you have your list, work through it methodically. Each broken link usually has one of these fixes.

Update the link to the correct address. This is the most common fix. If the page still exists but its address changed, update the link to point to the new address. If you linked to another website and that site changed its page address, find the new address and update your link.

Replace the link with a better one. Sometimes the original page is gone for good, but there is a suitable replacement. If you deleted an old blog post, link to a newer post on the same topic instead. If a supplier's page no longer exists, link to a different supplier or to a page on your own site that covers the same information. The goal is to give the visitor something useful, not just to remove the error.

Remove the link entirely. If there is no suitable replacement and the link no longer serves any purpose, remove it. This is better than leaving a broken link in place.

Set up redirects for renamed or moved pages. When you rename or move a page on your own website, set up a redirect from the old address to the new one. A redirect automatically sends anyone who visits the old address to the new page, so old links, bookmarks, and Google search results keep working. A 301 redirect is the correct type for a permanent move. Most website platforms and SEO plugins make it easy to add redirects, and this step should never be skipped when a page address changes.

A Simple Broken Link Checklist

Use this checklist each time you review your website.

• Run a broken link checker across your whole site and save the report.
• Check Google Search Console for pages returning errors.
• Manually test the links on your homepage, services pages, and contact page.
• For each broken link, decide whether to update it, replace it, or remove it.
• Add 301 redirects for any pages you renamed or moved.
• Re-run the checker after fixing everything to confirm the errors are gone.
• Note the date, and repeat the check in three months.

If broken links are only one of several problems on your site, such as outdated design or slow loading, see our guide on 5 signs your website needs a redesign for when a redesign is the right move.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I check for broken links?

Check at least once every three months, and always check after a website redesign, after deleting pages, or after changing page addresses. If you publish content frequently or link to many external sites, check more often.

Do broken links really affect my Google rankings?

Yes, they can. Broken links waste Google's crawling time, create a poor experience for visitors, and signal that a site is not well maintained.

What is the difference between a broken link and a 404 error?

A broken link is the cause, and a 404 error is the result. When a visitor clicks a broken link, the server responds that the page was not found, and the browser shows a 404 error page. Fixing the link removes the error.

Should I fix external broken links too?

Yes. Links to other websites that no longer work also create a poor experience for your visitors and reflect badly on your site. Update them to a working page, replace them with a better source, or remove them if there is no suitable replacement.

Final Thoughts

Broken links are a quiet problem. They do not stop your website from loading, and they rarely trigger complaints, but they steadily cost you visitors, trust, and search visibility. The fix is straightforward: find them with a checker, work through the list, update or redirect what you can, remove what you cannot, and repeat the check regularly.

Your website should work as hard as you do. Keeping its links clean is one of the simplest ways to make sure it does.

If you would like help auditing your website, fixing broken links, or improving how your site performs, Explore our services or contact us — we will be glad to help.