What are broken links?

Find out what broken links are and how to fix them.

Helen avatar
Written by Helen
Updated this week

A broken link (also known as a dead link) is a link within a target website that points to a web page that returns HTTP 404, and has become permanently unavailable.

In Ahrefs Site Explorer, we have a 'Broken links' report which shows all the outbound broken links together with their anchor texts that were found within a target website.

Note that a broken link can be both internal (pointing to another page of the same domain) or external (pointing to a web page within another domain).

A link can become broken for a variety of reasons such as the page has been moved, the domain expired, etc. That’s why in the 'Broken links' report, each link is marked with a red tag that specifies the issue — for instance, '404 not found' or 'cannot resolve host'.


It’s recommended to fix broken links of your own website for better user experience. 

 

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