Broken pages are the silent killers of SEO performance. They sit on your site, returning 404 errors, while Google crawls them, users hit them, and other websites link to them. Every one of those signals gets wasted. Most business owners never check for broken pages, so the problem compounds over time, dragging down rankings across the entire site.

The good news? Finding and fixing broken pages is one of the highest-ROI technical SEO tasks you can do. It requires no new content, no link building, and no design changes. Just a quick audit and a few redirects. Here's how to do it properly.

Why Broken Pages Hurt Your Rankings

Google's goal is to serve users the best possible result. When a page returns a 404, Google sees it as a signal that your site is neglected. That's bad enough on its own, but the real damage comes from link equity.

If another website links to a page on your site that no longer exists, all the authority from that link is lost. Instead of passing PageRank to a relevant page on your site, it goes nowhere. Over time, if you've accumulated many such links, you're essentially bleeding authority.

Broken internal links are equally problematic. They waste crawl budget, frustrate users, and dilute the link equity that should flow through your site's internal linking structure.

How to Find Broken Pages in Seconds

You don't need to manually check every link. Use a free tool like Ahrefs' Broken Link Checker. Here's the process:

  • Go to the Ahrefs Broken Link Checker.
  • Enter your website's URL.
  • Run the scan. It will crawl your site and list every page that returns a 404 or other error.

The tool also shows you which external sites are linking to those broken pages, so you can prioritize fixes based on link value.

If you want a more comprehensive audit, use a full SEO tool like Ahrefs Site Audit, which crawls your entire site and flags broken internal and external links, along with other technical issues.

How to Fix Broken Pages: The Redirect Strategy

Once you have your list, the fix is straightforward: redirect each broken URL to a working page. The key is to choose the right destination.

  • Redirect to the closest relevant page. If you deleted a product page, redirect to the category page or a similar product. If you removed a blog post, redirect to a related post or the blog hub.
  • Redirect to the homepage only as a last resort. Homepage redirects are better than nothing, but they pass less relevance. Only use them when no other page makes sense.
  • Use 301 (permanent) redirects. These pass the most link equity and tell Google the old page has moved for good.

Implement redirects in your CMS if possible, or via your server's .htaccess file (Apache) or nginx config. If you're not technical, ask your developer or use a plugin if you're on WordPress.

What to Do When a Page Is Truly Gone

Sometimes a page is gone for a reason, and you don't want to redirect it. In that case, you have two options:

  • Let it return a 404. That's fine if the page has no value and no links pointing to it. A 404 is not inherently bad; it's better than a soft 404 (a page that returns a 200 status but shows an error message).
  • Use a 410 Gone status. This tells Google the page is gone and won't come back, which can speed up removal from the index.

But if the page has external links, always try to redirect it. You're literally throwing away authority if you don't.

Preventing Broken Pages in the Future

Fixing current broken pages is step one. Step two is making sure new ones don't appear. Here's how:

  • Audit your site regularly. Run a broken link check monthly or quarterly, depending on how often you update content.
  • Use a redirect plugin that automatically suggests redirects when you delete or move pages.
  • Update internal links when you remove or move content. Don't leave orphaned links pointing to dead ends.
  • Monitor your 404 logs in Google Search Console to see which URLs are returning errors and how often.

Conclusion

Broken pages are a hidden tax on your SEO. They waste link equity, frustrate users, and signal neglect to Google. The fix is simple: find them with a free tool, redirect them to relevant pages, and prevent new ones from appearing. It's one of the quickest wins in technical SEO, and it doesn't require new content.

Start with the Ahrefs Broken Link Checker and clean up your site today. If you want to take your SEO further, try the full suite of tools to audit your entire site and track your rankings. Try Ahrefs free for 7 days.