Do Broken Links and 404 Errors Hurt SEO? How to Fix Them
Which 404 errors matter, which you can ignore, and a simple routine for finding and fixing broken links.
Every website collects broken links over time. Pages get renamed, external sites close, a typo slips into a menu. The question is not whether you have 404 errors but which ones matter, because some are harmless and a few can quietly cost you visitors and sales.
What a 404 actually tells search engines
A 404 status code means "this page does not exist." That is normal and expected for pages that were deleted on purpose, and Google has repeatedly said that 404s on their own do not harm the rest of your site's rankings. A missing page simply drops out of the index over time.
The damage comes from where the broken link is and what it was worth.
Broken links that do hurt
- Internal links to dead pages. Your own menu, footer or article links pointing to a 404 waste crawl time, break the path for visitors and stop link value from flowing to the pages you care about.
- Deleted pages that had backlinks. If other sites link to a URL that now returns 404, the value of those links is lost. These deserve a 301 redirect to the closest replacement.
- Broken links on money pages. A broken "Buy" button, contact link or product image costs conversions directly.
- Outbound links to dead sites. Not a ranking penalty, but they make content look neglected, which affects trust.
Broken links you can mostly ignore
Random URLs that never existed (often bots guessing paths), very old pages with no links or traffic, and malformed URLs from scrapers will show in Search Console as 404s. They are noise. Leave them as 404s โ redirecting junk URLs to your homepage is worse than letting them fail.
What about soft 404s?
A soft 404 is a page that says "not found" or is nearly empty but returns a 200 status code. Search engines detect these and treat them as errors anyway, so you get the worst of both: a wasted crawl and no useful page. Make sure your "not found" page returns a real 404 status, and avoid thin placeholder pages.
How to find broken links
- Check your key pages. Run your homepage, top landing pages and most-read posts through the free broken link checker. It tests every link on the page and lists the ones that fail. Our walkthrough on finding broken links on your website for free covers the process in detail.
- Review Search Console. The page indexing report lists URLs Google tried to crawl that returned 404, and shows where it found links to them.
- Check images separately. Broken images are easy to miss because the page still loads. The image URL checker tests whether an image address actually returns an image.
How to fix each type
- Internal link to a moved page: edit the link to point to the new URL directly.
- Deleted page with backlinks or traffic: add a 301 redirect to the most relevant live page. Check it with the redirect checker.
- Deleted page with no replacement and no value: remove internal links to it and let it return 404 (or 410 if you want to signal it is gone for good).
- Dead outbound link: replace it with a current source, or remove it.
Finally, make your 404 page useful: a short message, a search box and links to your main sections turn a dead end into a second chance.
Related guides
More free tools: browse all our free SEO tools, no sign-up needed.
Frequently asked questions
How many 404 errors are too many?
There is no magic number. A large site can have thousands of harmless 404s. Focus on broken internal links and lost pages that used to have traffic or backlinks.
Should I redirect all 404s to the homepage?
No. Google tends to treat that as a soft 404, and visitors land somewhere they did not expect. Redirect only to genuinely relevant pages.
What is the difference between 404 and 410?
Both mean the page is not available. A 410 says it is gone permanently, which can lead to slightly faster removal from the index.
How often should I check for broken links?
Monthly for active sites, and always after a redesign, migration or bulk content clean-up.