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How to Fix Broken Internal Links (404s)

Find and repair internal links that point to missing pages so you stop leaking link equity.

Difficulty
Medium
Impact
Medium
Time
20 min

Before

<a href="/old-product-page">View product</a>  <!-- 404 -->

After

<a href="/products/new-slug">View product</a>  <!-- live URL (or 301 the old one) -->
Before and after code for: How to Fix Broken Internal Links (404s)

A broken internal link is a link on your own site pointing at a URL that no longer resolves, usually returning a 404. Fix it by updating the link to the page's current address, or by 301-redirecting the old URL if the content moved. Deleting the link is the last resort: it was there because something needed to be reachable.

Why it matters

Internal links to 404 pages frustrate users, waste crawl budget, and stop link equity from flowing to the pages that should rank. They usually appear after a page is renamed or deleted without updating the links to it.

How to fix it

  1. Crawl for 404s

    Run a crawl to list every internal link returning a 404.

  2. Fix the destination

    Either restore the page, 301-redirect the old URL to the best replacement, or remove/repoint the link.

  3. Update the source links

    Point the links at the correct live URL directly: don't rely on redirects long-term.

The code

Beforehtml
<a href="/old-product-page">View product</a>  <!-- 404 -->
Afterhtml
<a href="/products/new-slug">View product</a>  <!-- live URL (or 301 the old one) -->

On your platform

WordPress

A redirection plugin (Redirection, Rank Math) logs 404s and lets you add 301s; then fix the source links in content.

Next.js

Add 301s in redirects() in next.config.js and fix the <Link> hrefs.

Sources

More fixes

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Add breadcrumbs (and BreadcrumbList schema) so users and Google understand your site hierarchy.

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