Fixing Broken Links and 404 Errors

Common causes

• A page was deleted or unpublished, but something still links to it.
• A page’s URL/slug was changed after it was linked to elsewhere.
• A typo in a manually typed link.

Finding broken links

If you don’t have a dedicated broken-link-checking plugin, keep an eye out for 404s reported by visitors, or periodically click through your own site’s main menu and key pages to check.

Fixing one

1. Find where the broken link is coming from (a menu item, a button, a link within page content).
2. Either update the link to point to the correct page, or restore/recreate the missing page if it should still exist.
3. If a page’s address has permanently changed, consider setting up a redirect from the old address to the new one so old links and search results still work.

Tip: If a page is being permanently removed, a redirect to the closest relevant page is usually better for visitors than leaving a dead link.