What Makes a Link Broken?
A hyperlink has a source, such as a blog post containing the link, and a destination, which is the address it opens. A link is genuinely broken when its destination cannot provide the intended resource. Common examples include a misspelled path, a deleted product page, or an old article URL that was never redirected.
Internal links point to pages on your own website. External links point to other domains. Both deserve attention, but the repair options differ. You control your internal destinations and redirects; for external destinations, you generally control only the hyperlink on your page. An inbound backlink is different again: it sits on somebody else’s website and points to yours. Checking links on your own pages does not automatically discover all inbound backlinks.
Choose the Right Page and Check the Coverage
- Enter the full address of the public page or website in the tool’s URL field.
- Run the available check and review any reported links and error information.
- Separate links to your own domain from links to external websites.
- Open suspicious destinations independently before deciding they are permanently broken.
- Find the source page or template where the link must be corrected.
Do not assume a single-page check covers an entire domain. A website-wide audit requires discovering multiple pages and checking the links found on them. The exact crawl depth, link limits, and handling of scripts depend on the checker being used. If a report does not include the original linking page, use your content search, navigation editor, or a dedicated crawler to locate it.
How to Interpret Common HTTP Status Codes
Important: a redirect is not automatically a broken link, and a response code alone cannot prove that a page contains the content a visitor wanted. A website may even show a “not found” message while incorrectly returning 200; this is sometimes called a soft 404.
Trace a Missing Destination Back to Its Source
Imagine an article at https://example.com/guides/launch/ links to https://example.com/resources/old-checklist/. The second address now returns 404, but the checklist has moved to /resources/launch-checklist/. The most useful repair is to update the hyperlink in the guide to the correct destination.
If several articles link to the old checklist, repair each internal reference. If the old address also receives bookmarks or links from outside your site, consider a permanent redirect to the equivalent checklist. The source page matters because a report of a missing URL, without its referring page, does not tell an editor where the visible error originates.
Fix Internal Links With the Smallest Accurate Change
First determine whether the destination still exists under a different address. A spelling error can be fixed directly in the hyperlink. A renamed article can be linked to at its new URL. A permanently moved page may also need a 301 or 308 redirect so old bookmarks and external links continue to reach the replacement.
Do not redirect every missing address to the homepage. That often sends visitors to content unrelated to their original request. If there is no comparable replacement and the page was deliberately retired, remove the obsolete internal link and allow an appropriate 404 or 410 response. For Apache-based sites, the Htaccess Redirect Generator can help with certain redirect configurations; test changes before applying them to a live server.
For WordPress, also review menus, widgets, reusable blocks, and page templates. A single broken navigation link may appear across many pages. Following a migration, compare your site structure against the URLs listed in your XML sitemap, while remembering that a sitemap is not a complete inventory of every hyperlink.
Repair Dead External References Without Losing Context
When an outside source disappears, look for the original publisher’s updated page, a newer edition of the same document, or another authoritative source that supports the sentence. Replace the hyperlink only when the new destination genuinely matches the claim. If a reference is no longer necessary, remove the link; if the evidence is essential and cannot be recovered, revise the statement itself.
A failed automated check is not enough reason to delete a valuable external citation. Some publishers block crawlers while serving normal visitors. Open the URL yourself, check its final destination, and repeat the test before making an editorial decision.
Why a Link Checker Can Report a False Alarm
Websites can respond differently according to user agent, location, authentication, request frequency, or bot-protection rules. A 403 or 429 response may reflect access restrictions rather than a missing article. A slow response can become a timeout during a short automated check, and a temporary 5xx error may disappear after the destination recovers.
Other problems may not show up in a basic check. Links added only after JavaScript runs can escape a crawler that reads initial HTML. A fragment such as #pricing may point to a missing section even when the page itself returns 200. Login-only content, forms, and restricted dashboards may also be inaccessible to public checkers. Treat results as evidence to investigate, not as an unquestionable deletion list.
Build Broken-Link Checks Into Website Maintenance
Check key navigation and heavily visited landing pages after publishing a redesign, changing permalinks, or migrating domains. Review old content links periodically, especially articles that cite third-party studies or product pages. For large sites, use a crawl that records the source URL, target URL, and response so fixes can be assigned and checked again.
A Website Links Count Checker can provide context about the internal and external links on a page, while a Backlink Checker addresses a different question: links from other sites pointing toward your website. After repairs, recheck affected pages and use Google Search Console to investigate crawl or indexing reports. Search Console is not a complete inventory of outbound links.
Does Every 404 Error Need a Redirect?
No. A 404 can be the correct response for an address that never existed or a page with no suitable successor. The priority is to stop sending visitors through broken internal links and to restore genuinely useful destinations where possible. Use permanent redirects for meaningful page moves, not to hide every missing URL. A clear custom 404 page can help visitors recover, but it should still return the proper 404 status code.
