Broken links are links on your site that lead to pages that no longer exist — the visitor clicks a link and sees a 404 “Page Not Found” error. Broken links frustrate visitors, waste Google’s crawl budget, and signal neglect that can hurt your search rankings. The problem is that links break silently over time, and on a large site, you can accumulate hundreds of broken links without knowing it. The Broken Links Scanner in SEO Forge PRO checks every link in your published content and tells you exactly which ones are broken, where they are, and what error they return.
Why Broken Links Happen
Links break for many reasons, and none of them are your fault — they are an inevitable part of running a website:
- External websites remove or move pagesa page you linked to two years ago may no longer exist.
- You changed your own URL structurereorganizing categories or changing permalinks breaks old internal links.
- A typo in the original URLan extra character or missing letter that was never caught.
- A linked resource moved to a new domainthe company rebranded or merged.
- Server issuesthe linked site’s hosting was down when the scanner checked.
Step-by-Step: Running a Broken Links Scan
- Go to SEO Forge > Broken Links in the WordPress sidebar.
- Click the Start Scan button.
- The scanner checks every link in every published post and page on your site. This may take a few minutes on large sites (100+ posts).
- When finished, a results table appears.
- Review the results, sorted by post or by error type.
- Fix the most impactful broken links first (the ones on your highest-traffic pages).
Understanding the Results Table
| Column | What It Tells You | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Post | The post or page that contains the broken link | “Best Photography Cameras 2025” |
| Broken URL | The URL that is no longer working | https://example.com/old-camera-review |
| Status Code | The HTTP error code | 404 (Not Found), 500 (Server Error), Timeout |
| Anchor Text | The clickable text of the broken link | “detailed camera review” |
| Actions | Buttons to edit the post, dismiss the result, or create a redirect | Edit / Dismiss / Redirect |
Step-by-Step: Fixing Broken Links
- Review each broken link in the results table.
- Click Edit to open the post that contains the broken link.
- Find the broken link in your content (search for the anchor text to find it quickly).
- Decide what to do:
– Replace the link — find an alternative resource that covers the same topic and link to that instead.
– Remove the link entirely — if no suitable replacement exists, remove the link text or replace it with plain text.
- Save the post.
- After fixing several links, run the scanner again to verify they are resolved.
How Often to Run Scans
| Site Size | Recommended Frequency |
|---|---|
| Small (under 50 posts) | Monthly |
| Medium (50 — 200 posts) | Bi-weekly |
| Large (200+ posts) | Weekly |
| After major site changes | Immediately |
Real-World Example
You run a scan on your travel blog and find 12 broken links. Three of them are internal links to posts you deleted last year, six are external links to hotel booking pages that have changed their URLs, and three are links to a travel resource website that shut down. You fix the internal ones by creating redirects (see next section), update the hotel links to point to the current booking pages, and remove the links to the defunct website.
> Good to know: The scanner checks both internal links (to your own site) and external links (to other websites). Internal broken links are usually easy to fix with a redirect. External broken links require finding a replacement URL or removing the link.
> Tip: After every scan, sort the results by post. If one page has five broken links, it is probably an old post that references outdated resources — a signal that the entire post may need a content refresh.
Common Mistakes
- Ignoring broken internal links. These are the easiest to fix (usually with a redirect) and have the biggest impact on user experience and SEO.
- Dismissing results without fixing them. The “dismiss” button hides the result from the list but does not fix the link on your page. Only dismiss results you have confirmed are false positives.
- Running a scan once and never again. Links break continuously. Make scanning a regular part of your SEO routine.
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