Broken links (returning a 404 or similar error) hurt both user experience and, over time, SEO — search engines that repeatedly hit dead ends on your site can deprioritize crawling it as thoroughly.
Finding them
- Automated site crawlers can check every internal and external link across your whole site on a schedule, rather than relying on someone stumbling onto a broken one manually
- Google Search Console’s coverage report surfaces 404s that Googlebot has actually encountered
Fixing them
- Internal broken links: update the link or restore/redirect the missing page
- External broken links (linking out to a page that’s since disappeared): update to a current source or remove the link
- For any page you intentionally remove or move, set up a 301 redirect rather than leaving a dead link behind
FAQ
How many broken links does it take to actually hurt SEO?
A handful scattered across a large site is unlikely to meaningfully hurt rankings; a high volume or broken links on high-traffic/high-value pages is the more serious signal worth prioritizing.