Where broken links come from
A link rarely breaks on its own. Something usually changes on the site: a page address is renamed, an outdated service is deleted, the site moves to a new platform or gets a redesign. The old addresses stay behind in menus, articles and buttons, and each one becomes a dead end.
Other causes sit outside your site. A partner closes down, a supplier restructures its catalogue, an article in someone else's blog disappears. Your site did not change, yet the link on it now points at nothing.
- a page address changed or deleted without a redirect
- a typo when pasting a URL
- a site migration or redesign
- a removed product, promotion or article
- an external website that closed or moved
How broken links hurt your business
The first hit lands on the customer. Someone looking for a dentist or custom furniture reaches the right button and meets an error. They are unlikely to come back, because a competitor's site in the next tab opens without trouble.
The second hit lands on SEO. Search robots waste time on addresses that do not exist, and internal links that should pass authority to important pages pass nothing. A single error will not sink your rankings, but hundreds of them make a site look neglected and harder for a crawler to understand.
Three types of broken links
Internal links go from one page of your site to another. This is the type that matters most, because you control it fully and can fix it the same day.
Outgoing (external) links go from your site to other resources. If the site you referenced has vanished, find a current source or remove the link.
Incoming links come from other websites to pages of yours that no longer exist. You cannot edit someone else's page, but you can set up a redirect to a relevant page and keep the value of that link.
How to find broken links: a practical broken link check
Checking every page by hand makes no sense, so people combine several tools that complement each other.
- a site crawler: it walks through every page and shows which page contains the faulty link
- Google Search Console: lists addresses with errors that Google's robot encountered
- link analysis services: help you see incoming links pointing to pages that return errors
- a manual look at outside platforms: the link in your Instagram bio, the pinned post in your Telegram channel, your Google Maps listing, profiles on OLX and Uzum
What to fix first
Start where a single mistake multiplies. A broken link in the menu, footer or product card template repeats on every page, so fixing one line removes hundreds of errors. Pay particular attention to buttons leading to Click or Payme payment and to lead forms.
Next, move to links inside the text of key pages: services, prices, contacts, popular articles. Leave external links and rarely visited old posts for last.
The fix depends on the situation. If the address simply changed, update the link and add a 301 redirect from the old URL. If the page was removed with no replacement, delete the link. Send the redirect to a page close in meaning, not automatically to the homepage, otherwise neither the visitor nor the search engine gets what they were looking for.
How to keep them from piling up again
Before deleting or renaming a page, check which pages link to it and update them the same day. Whenever addresses change, prepare a list of redirects alongside.
Run a crawler once a month and compare it with the Search Console reports. Broken links usually accumulate for years not because they are hard to fix, but because nobody was checking.
For a large catalogue, or a site that has been redesigned several times, it is easier to build this check into overall SEO optimisation. The markdev team runs technical audits for websites in Uzbekistan and helps clean up links and redirects. If you want to know how many errors have built up on your site, write to us and we will go through the task together.
FAQ
How can I quickly check whether my site has broken links?
Run a crawler across the whole site and open the indexing errors section in Search Console. The first shows links inside your site, the second shows addresses Google's robot ran into.
Do I need to fix every broken link at once?
No. Start with errors in the menu, templates and pages that bring in leads, then links inside text, and external links last.
What should I do about incoming broken links?
You cannot change another website, so set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the closest matching page on your own site.
How often should I check my site for broken links?
Running a crawler once a month is enough, plus an extra check after any change of structure, migration or removal of sections.
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