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Technical SEO

How Often Should You Check Your Website for Broken Links?

Published 2 min read

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Most websites should check for broken links about once a month. Large or fast-changing sites, such as online shops and news sites, benefit from weekly checks, and you should always run a check straight after a migration, redesign or large content deletion. Regular small checks are easier than occasional big clean-ups.

A simple schedule

  • Small, rarely changed site: every one to three months.
  • Active blog or business site: monthly.
  • Large shop or publisher: weekly, ideally automated.
  • After any big change: immediately.

Pages get deleted, addresses change and external sites disappear. Even if you never touch a page, the sites it links to may move or shut down, so a clean site today can have problems next month.

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Triggers that need an extra check

  • A redesign or platform move.
  • Changing your URL structure.
  • Deleting or merging pages.
  • Switching to HTTPS or changing domain.

How to run a check

Enter a page into my free broken link checker and review the failing links. For the repair process, follow how to fix broken links for SEO.

Automate where you can

Larger sites should schedule crawls and alerts so problems are caught quickly. Combine this with the methods in finding broken links with Search Console.

Keep a log

Note what you found and fixed each time. Patterns show where your content process creates broken links.

Frequently asked questions

Does one broken link hurt rankings?

A few will not. Large numbers hurt user experience and can waste crawling.

Should I check the whole site or just key pages?

Check key pages often and the whole site on a longer schedule.

Next steps

For a full audit, contact me here.

More in this series (broken link questions): start with Free Broken Link Checker, then explore:

  • Broken Internal Links vs Broken External Links: Which Matter More?
  • Link Checker Shows 403, 429 or 999: Is the Link Really Broken?
  • How to Find Broken Links and 404 Errors Using Google Search Console
  • How to Reclaim Broken Backlinks and Win Back Lost Link Value

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