How to find and fix broken links before they hurt your site
A broken link is not just a red 404 in an audit. It may stop a visitor from reaching a download, leave a search crawler at a dead end, or send authority to a page that no longer exists. The safest way to repair links is to understand what each destination was meant to do before changing it.
The Broken Link Checker scans one public page, extracts its links and separates working pages, redirects and failures. That page-by-page approach is useful because it keeps the source context: you can see the link text and decide whether the destination should be replaced, redirected or removed.
Start with important pages
Do not begin by crawling every corner of a large site. Check the pages that receive traffic or help people complete a task:
- The homepage and main navigation.
- Product, service and pricing pages.
- Popular articles and evergreen guides.
- Download, contact, sign-up and support pages.
- Pages linked from advertising or social profiles.
A single broken call-to-action on a busy page matters more than dozens of old links in an archive.
Read status codes in context
A status code tells you what happened to the request, not automatically what to do next.
- 200–299: the destination responded successfully.
- 300–399: the link redirects. One intentional redirect is usually fine; chains add delay and can hide mistakes.
- 404 or 410: the page is missing or intentionally gone.
- 429: the site is limiting automated requests; check again later rather than declaring the link dead.
- 500–599: the destination has a server problem and may recover.
Some websites block automated requests even though the page opens normally. Confirm an unexpected error in your browser before editing the source page.
Choose the right repair
Replace a broken external link when another authoritative page covers the same claim. Remove it when the reference is optional and no good replacement exists. For an internal page that moved, update the source link and keep a permanent redirect from the old address when outside sites or bookmarks may still use it.
Avoid redirecting every missing page to the homepage. That hides the original error without giving visitors the content they expected. A close replacement, category page or clear 404 page is more useful.
Use the Redirect Chain Analyzer when a link takes several hops. Update your own links to point directly at the final canonical URL, then keep only the redirects needed for old incoming addresses.
Validate the sitemap separately
Page links and sitemap entries answer different questions. A page link helps a person or crawler move through the site. A sitemap lists URLs you want search engines to discover and consider for indexing.
Run the file through the Sitemap Validator to check:
- The XML can be parsed.
- The root is a URL set or sitemap index.
- Every entry has a valid absolute HTTP or HTTPS location.
- Dates, change frequencies and priorities use accepted formats.
- The file stays within sitemap size and entry limits.
- A sample of listed URLs responds successfully.
A sitemap should normally contain canonical, indexable URLs that return a successful response. Remove redirects, missing pages, search-result pages and private areas. If the site has more than 50,000 URLs or the uncompressed file exceeds 50 MB, split it into several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index.
Finish with a short repeatable check
After repairing links, scan the edited page again. Then validate the sitemap and check that the sitemap URL is listed in robots.txt. Repeat the review after a redesign, domain change, large content cleanup or URL migration.
The tools use Coders Hub's secure relay to request public pages because browsers normally block cross-site status checks. They do not sign in to websites or bypass private areas, and a target site can still choose to block the request.