Broken Links and SEO: Do They Hurt Rankings, and How to Fix Them
Short answer: a 404 on its own doesn’t hurt the rest of your site. Google says 404s are a normal part of the web and don’t affect how your other pages perform. Broken links still cost you in three ways: visitors hit dead ends, your internal links stop leading Google to pages you want found, and backlinks pointing at dead URLs stop helping. So fix the broken links that matter (internal links, URLs with backlinks or traffic, pages you still want indexed) and leave intentional 404s alone.
What Google says about 404s
- Google doesn’t index URLs that return a 4xx status, and removes already-indexed URLs that start returning one.
- “All 4xx errors, except 429, are treated the same”, so 404 and 410 work the same for Google, and they don’t affect crawl rate.
- Google’s “Do 404 errors hurt my site?” post: 404s alone don’t count against you, but fix the ones on pages you care about, and 301-redirect misspelled URLs that people link to.
- Removed pages should return a real 404 or 410, not a “not found” message with a 200 status (a soft 404).
Which broken links to fix
| Type | Why it matters | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Internal: your page links to your own dead URL | Dead end for visitors; Google can’t reach the intended page through that link | Update the link to the right live URL |
| Inbound: another site links to your dead URL | The backlink stops helping; visitors from that site land on a 404 | 301-redirect the dead URL to its closest replacement |
| Outbound: your page links to a dead page elsewhere | Bad experience; the page looks unmaintained | Update to the new location, a different source, or remove the link |
| In the sitemap: sitemap lists a 404 | Sitemaps should list only live, indexable URLs | Remove it or replace it with the live URL |
How to find broken links
Internal and outbound
Crawl your site with a site crawler or audit tool and filter for 4xx responses; each result shows which pages link to the dead URL. For a quick check of one page:
# list links on a page and print the status of each
curl -s https://example.com/page | grep -oE 'href="https?://[^"]+"' | cut -d'"' -f2 | sort -u |
while read -r u; do echo "$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' "$u") $u"; done | grep -v '^200'Inbound
Search Console’s Page indexing report lists “Not found (404)” URLs Google tried to crawl; inspect any that look like real pages. A backlink tool’s “broken backlinks” report shows dead URLs that other sites still link to, which are the most valuable ones to redirect. See Not found (404) in Search Console.
In your sitemap
The free sitemap checker tests 30 sitemap URLs live and lists any that return 404, redirect or are noindexed.
How to fix them
- Internal links: edit the link to point straight at the live URL. Don’t rely on a redirect for links you control.
- Moved pages: add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one, one hop, no chains.
- Deleted pages with backlinks or traffic: 301-redirect to the closest equivalent. If nothing similar exists, let it return 404 rather than redirecting to the homepage.
- Deleted pages with no links or traffic: leave them as 404 or 410 and remove internal links and sitemap entries.
- Outbound links: find the moved page on the other site, link a different good source, or remove the link.
Prevent new ones
- Never change or delete a URL without deciding its redirect first.
- Re-crawl after migrations, menu changes and bulk edits.
- Generate the sitemap from your live pages so deleted URLs drop out automatically.
- Make your 404 page helpful (search, popular links) while still returning a 404 status.
Planning a bigger URL change? Use the SEO migration checklist. Want to win links from other sites’ broken links? See broken link building.
Frequently asked questions
Do broken links hurt SEO?
Not directly for the rest of the site. Google says URLs that return 404 don’t affect how your other pages perform. The real costs are indirect: visitors hit dead ends, internal links stop leading Google to pages you care about, and backlinks pointing at a 404 stop helping you.
Should I fix every 404 in Search Console?
No. Many reported 404s are URLs that never existed or pages you removed on purpose; those should stay 404. Fix the ones that matter: pages you still want indexed, URLs your own site links to, and URLs with backlinks or traffic.
Is 410 better than 404 for SEO?
For Google, they are handled the same: its documentation says all 4xx errors except 429 are treated the same. Use whichever fits; both tell Google the page is gone.
Should I redirect all broken URLs to the homepage?
No. Redirect each one to its closest replacement. Google warns against sending many URLs to an irrelevant page, and it may treat such redirects as soft 404s.
How often should I check for broken links?
After any URL change, migration or menu update, and otherwise on a regular schedule such as monthly. Large or fast-changing sites need it more often.