Broken Links

What is a Broken Link?

A broken link is a link that points to a web page or resource that has been moved, or doesn’t exist.

In other words, we call links broken when they lead to a 404 page. 

But it gets a bit more granular than that.

There are multiple types of broken links that users can encounter, and some are worse than others for SEO.

Broken Internal Link

Broken internal links are links from one page to another on the same website. These are bad.

You should scan your site from time to time, and fix any broken internal links on your page.

Don’t get me wrong, having a broken internal link won’t immediately ruin your sites ranking.

But if you have a bunch of broken internal links on your website, it might lead to lower rankings over time.

Broken External Link

Broken external links are links from your website to another website that don’t work.

This is something that you shouldn’t obsess about.

If you link to another website, and the website admin moves or deletes the content, that’s out of your control.

So if you spot a broken external link, fix it if it’s an important resource.

Otherwise, your time is better spent elsewhere. Google won’t penalize you for having broken external links. 

Broken Backlinks

Broken backlinks are links from other websites to your website that don’t work anymore.

Broken backlinks won’t ruin your SEO, but it’s a good idea to fix them if you can.

Here's why...

Backlinks are an important ranking factor. Getting backlinks from other websites can boost your site's authority.

It's similar to getting your comment upvoted on Reddit. The comments with the most upvotes are higher up.

Websites work in a similar way. The more (legitimate) backlinks you have, the more likely it is that your site will rank high.

When you're having broken backlinks, you're missing out on the endorsement from other websites.

So if you moved your content to another URL, make sure to implement 301 redirects.

Otherwise, you're missing out on valuable backlinks that give your site authority.

Are broken Links Important for SEO?

Contrary to popular belief, broken links are actually not bad for your website. 

Websites change and grow, and so does the internet. Having broken links here and there is a normal byproducts of growing your site.

However, websites that don’t fix their broken links for a long period of time show to search engines that they might be neglected.

This means not fixing broken links on your website indicates to search engines that you are not maintaining or keeping your website content up to date.

Broken Links and UX

If you have too many broken links, this will actually mean that your users will not have the best user experience on your website.

And how users behave on your website is one of the signals that search engines track to determine the quality of your website.

Broken Links Means Higher Bounce Rate

Just like page loading times or visual stability, broken links can lead to higher bounce rates on your website.

And this can have negative effects both for your marketing and SEO efforts.

Why do links break, and how to avoid it?

Here are the most common reasons that lead to broken links:

• The website was migrated without 301 redirects
• The website was restructured without 301 redirects
• Typos or spelling mistakes
• Page no longer exists
• The page slug has been renamed
• Domain name changed

I've seen so many disastrous migrations like this one:

And the main reason why this happens is because designers and developers restructure the site, without setting up 301 redirects. As a result, the site suddenly has a ton of broken links, and Google rankings plummet.

If you set up proper redirects, and you don't change the site's metadata, a migration will look like this:

The site migration in the screenshot above was massive. There were over 400 pages, and the site needed to be moved from a non-www domain to www.

You can see that the site took a hit for the first 2 weeks. After that period, the site went back to baseline, and later reached an all time high in daily clicks.

How to Find Broken Links?

There are a few ways to find broken links, outside of manually checking each link on your site.

Broken Links in GSC

Google Search Console will report any broken links whenever crawlers find them. 

To find this report in the Search Console:

• Go to Pages
• Find the “Why pages aren’t indexed” dashboard below
• Select “Not Found (404)”

You will see all the pages that Google found on your site that don’t exist. 

Usually, this means Google found at least one broken link to non-existent pages.

This information can be enough to fix the issue (more on that below), but it will not tell all the places where this broken link exists.

Broken Links in SEO Software

That’s why you will need SEO crawling software like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to find all the broken links on each page.

Both tools have some limited free plans that you can check out as these SEO tools are not cheap if you want to use them professionally.

You can also search for broken link checkers on Google that might be able to check all links on your website and find all the broken ones.

How to Fix Broken Links?

There are 3 main ways to fix a broken link on your website:

• Redirect
• Publish
• Delete

Make 301 Redirects

If your broken links are just spelling mistakes or pages just changed their slug, creating a redirect should fix the problem in most cases.

You can create 301 redirects in Webflow in your Page Settings, inside the Publishing tab. 

Read our full Webflow redirection and SEO guide if you need more information about that.

Recreate Pages (Content)

Sometimes pages were unpublished or deleted by accident and that created a broken link.

If that’s the case, publish the page or recreate it. 

It’s important to note that you should match the content you had before whenever you can, but even if you make completely new content…

Make sure that the slug is the same as it was before. If you don’t want or can't make the same slug, 301 redirect it from the old slug after you publish it. 

Pro tip: you can try to use the Wayback Machine to see what content the old page had.  

Delete Broken Internal Links

Obviously, you can always delete broken links from all the pages that have them.

This is the easiest way to fix the broken link problem, as long as you know where exactly on your website those links are!

Also, it’s important to mention that this should be your last resort.

It’s always better to redirect your traffic or to create the relevant pages. 

Quick Recap

Broken links on your Webflow website are links that link to 404 (non-existent) pages. 

It’s normal to have some broken links, however sooner or later those should be found and fixed.

Fixing a broken link, can be done in one of 3 different ways:

• Set a 301 redirect (from old url to new url)
• Republish or recreate pages that existed before
• Deleting the broken link or changing it to another one
• You can use Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, or Ahrefs to find broken links for free