Short answer: A broken link points to a page that no longer loads, usually one that answers with a 404 error. Google says 404 errors are a normal part of the web and don’t hurt the rest of your site. Each one still leaves a visitor at a dead end, so find them with a link checker and Search Console, then update, redirect or remove each link.
What a broken link is
A link breaks when the page it points to can’t be found. MDN Web Docs says links that lead to a 404 page are often called broken or dead links.
The usual causes are mistyped addresses and pages that were moved or deleted without a redirect. A 404 doesn’t say whether the page is missing for a while or for good. A 410 says it’s gone and likely for good, and MDN asks site owners to remove or replace links that return it.
Do broken links hurt your SEO?
Not directly, according to Google. Its Search Central blog calls 404 errors a perfectly normal part of the web. It adds that addresses returning them don’t affect how the site’s other pages perform in search.
A page that answers with a 404 drops out of Google’s index if it was in it, and Google crawls it less and less often. 4xx codes other than 429 don’t change how fast Google crawls the rest of your site. Google can only see the code if robots.txt lets it crawl the address.
A visitor who clicks a broken link lands on an error page, and a link from another site to a dead address sends its visitors to the same dead end. Our guide to the 404 page shows how to make that error page useful.
What to do with each broken link
The fix depends on where the link is: you can edit your own links, but not the ones on other sites.
| Broken link | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Your link to a page you moved | The address changed and the link didn’t | Update the link to the new address |
| Another site’s link to a page you moved | You can’t edit links on other sites | Add a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one |
| A typo in another site’s link to you | Someone meant to link to you | Redirect the misspelled address to the right page with a 301 |
| Your link to another site’s page that’s gone | The other site removed or moved it | Replace it with a working source, or remove the link |
| Your link to a page you deleted for good | There’s no page to replace it | Remove the link; the page answers 404 or 410 |
| Your link that goes through a redirect | It still works, with an extra step | Point it straight at the final address |
Based on Google’s Search Central blog and MDN Web Docs, read November 3, 2026.
How to find and fix broken links
- Run a link checker on your site. The W3C’s Link Checker, a web form where you paste an address, can check one page or follow the links through your site to a depth you choose.
- In Search Console, open the Page indexing report and look for the reason Not found (404).
- For each broken address, list the pages that link to it.
- Fix your own links first, and point each one at the right, final address.
- Add a 301 redirect for any moved page that other sites still link to.
- Open in a browser every link the checker says was refused, because some sites turn automated checks away.
- Check again after a redesign, a move to a new platform or a batch of deleted pages.
Our guides to HTTP status codes and 301 redirects explain the codes and the redirects behind steps 2 and 5.
What we found on our own site
On November 3, 2026, we checked every link on the 348 pages of our sitemap: 36,820 links pointing to 352 different addresses on our site and 1,144 on other sites. Each address was checked once.
All 352 internal addresses answered without an error, and none went through a redirect. Of the external ones, 312 didn’t answer our script with a page. Meta’s sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, held 275 of them and answered the script with an error, but a sample of 20 loaded fine in a browser.
We opened the other 37 in a browser: 10 loaded, 25 refused automated visits even there, and 2 no longer existed. Both were on our Spanish legal pages, which linked to Spanish pages of ADA.gov and of the California Attorney General’s CCPA site. We pointed them to the English pages and said so in the text.
Before you call your links fixed
- Your link checker finds no broken links to your own pages.
- Every page you moved redirects to its new address.
- No link of yours goes through a redirect.
- Your links to other sites lead to pages that load.
- Pages you deleted answer with a 404 or 410.
- You reviewed Search Console’s Not found (404) list and fixed the addresses that should work.
RememberA broken link is a dead end for a visitor, not a penalty for your site. Check your links after every change, fix your own first and redirect moved pages that other sites link to.
If you want us to check your site’s links and redirects, see our technical SEO service.
Quick answers about broken links
Do broken links hurt SEO?
Not directly. Google says 404 errors are a normal part of the web and don’t affect how your other pages perform in search results. They still leave visitors at a dead end, and a link from another site to a dead page loses the visits it would send.
What’s the difference between a 404 and a 410?
A 404 says the server can’t find the page, without saying whether that’s temporary or permanent. A 410 says the page is gone and likely for good. Google treats the two the same way, and MDN suggests a 404 when you don’t know whether the removal is permanent.
Is a custom 404 page enough?
Make your 404 page useful: Google suggests helping visitors find what they were looking for. The page must still answer with a 404 or 410 code, because an error page that answers with a 200 is a soft 404. Google also warns against sending every unknown address to your home page.
Why does Search Console still list a 404 I already fixed?
Googlebot may keep trying a removed address for a while, and there’s no way to tell it to forget one, but it crawls it less and less often. A 404 for a page you removed without a replacement isn’t necessarily a problem, and Google says 404s for addresses that never existed on your site are safe to ignore.
How often should I check for broken links?
Check after anything that changes addresses: a redesign, a move to a new platform, renamed pages or deleted posts. We check the links of each new guide before and after we publish it.
Sources
Read on November 3, 2026. Google Crawling Infrastructure: How HTTP status codes affect Google’s crawlers. Google Search Central blog: Do 404 errors hurt my site? Search Console Help: Page indexing report. MDN Web Docs: 404 Not Found and 410 Gone. W3C: Link Checker. Our own case: our link check of November 3, 2026.