Finding out broken links: 3 handy ways [Free]

The visitor ends up somewhere they don't want to end up, Google ends up at a dead end, and the page you link to no longer gets the value sent. In other words, a broken link has only losers.

But what is a broken link? How do you figure them out and what to do with them? I'll explain that to you!

What is a broken link?

A broken link, also called a broken link, is a link that does not link correctly. It's a little vague, but that's because a link can be broken in several ways.

For example, you may have made a typo. So linking to /bolg instead of /blog, but it could also be that you linked correctly and then the target page was removed.

It could be that that page was removed because the action no longer exists, or it could be that the URL was changed and no redirect was created.

The result of clicking on a broken link is often that you end up on a 404 page. At least, you should! Because, unfortunately, I still encounter many websites that do not yet have a 404 page.

What to do with a broken link?

You can actually fix a broken link in two ways:

• You address the link at the source. In other words, you modify the link itself.
• You address the page you link to.

Both options I'm going to explain. If we go back for a moment to the aforementioned example /bolg, it is very clear what you have to do. Namely, you have to address the link at the source and change /bolg to /blog.

This option is the correct option in 90% of cases. But what if it wasn't a typo, but you want to change all the links because the page will be renamed?

Then it's not doable to adjust them all manually. Especially not when you have the link 100 times in your website. What you need to do then is to set up a redirect.

A redirect is a redirect, basically saying, "The page has moved from X to Y. This allows Google to know what to do and this also gets the user to the right place.

I always compare this to forwarding your mail when you have just moved. Again, you want it to arrive well for yourself, but also for the person who sent the mail.

And you want to arrange it the same way online.

This way the visitor and Google will be properly redirected, but remember: it is always better to adjust the link anyway. If you don't do that for a few years, you will soon have thousands of redirects in your website.

Again, you don't want that.

3 free ways to figure out broken links

Now that it's clear what a broken link is and how to fix them, I'm going to show you 3 easy ways you can detect broken links yourself.

And we begin with Screaming Frog.

1. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a program that can pretend to go/creep through your Web site like Google does. Screaming Frog takes all the URLs you use within your website and displays all the important information from them.

Consider:

• Whether the URL is indexable
• Whether the page has an H1
• Whether the page has a meta description
• Whether the page has a meta title

And much more! But so Screaming Frog also indicates when there is a broken link within your website.

What will that look like? For that, I briefly added a broken link to a test message on my website. See the third link in the example below.

What is still important to mention is that Screaming Frog is only free up to 500 URLs. Should you have a larger website, you will need to purchase a license or go for the other options.

2. Google Search Console

If your website doesn't have Search Console yet, you need to get it now. You should, yes.

Search Console is one of the most important Google tools and gives you more power over the indexing of your website in Google.

Within Search Console, you have a heading called 'Pages.' Then if you click on the 'Not Indexed' block on the left, you will see all the coverage errors within your website.

And let broken links, also known as 404s, be one of these coverage errors. Click 'Not Found (404)' and 'Soft 404' to find out the broken link and tadaaaa!

All broken links listed.

3. An online broken link checker

There are several Web sites that can check your Web site for 404s like Screaming Frog does. Personally, I am a big fan of the Online Broken Link Checker and the Dead Link Checker.

By simply typing in your website's URL, entering the code and selecting the appropriate option, you can let the Online Broken Link Checker do all the work.

The Online Broken Link Checker then goes through all the pages and when it finds a broken link, it will report it. Again, I just added a broken link to my website on purpose, so you can see the result.

This article was written March 31, 2020 and updated June 18, 2023.