Detect Broken Links on Website: Find All 404 Pages Fast

A single broken link costs you a visitor. Hundreds of them cost you rankings.

Every time Google or a real user clicks a broken link on your site, they hit a dead end. Google stops passing link equity through broken internal links. Users leave. Both are bad for your site.

This guide shows you the different types of broken links, why they appear and how to detect broken links on your website quickly and fix the right ones first.

Types of Broken Links You Will Find

Not all broken links are the same. Here are the seven most common types:

• 404 Page Not Found. The most common type. The page existed but has been moved or deleted.
• 400 Bad Request. The URL contains characters the server cannot parse. Usually caused by a malformed link in the source HTML.
• Bad Host. The domain in the link does not exist or cannot be reached. Common after a site is taken down or a domain expires.
• Empty Response. The server receives the request but returns nothing. No response code, no content.
• Bad URL. A typo in the URL itself, such as a missing slash or a misplaced character.
• Timeout. The server takes too long to respond and the connection times out. Can indicate a slow or overloaded host.
• Reset. The connection to the server is reset before the response is complete. Usually a server configuration issue.

Why Broken Links Hurt Your Site

There are two direct impacts of broken links:

User experience. Visitors who click a broken link hit a 404 page. Many of them leave without looking for the correct page. That is lost traffic, and it damages trust in your site.

SEO. Internal broken links interrupt the flow of link equity through your site. Pages that should benefit from internal linking do not receive it. External sites linking to broken pages on your domain are also wasted authority.

Sites with more than 10,000 pages accumulate broken links fast, especially after redesigns, CMS migrations or content pruning.

How to Detect Broken Links on Your Website

Watch the tutorial below to see how the tool works, then follow the written steps.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRo0ZjqZ_4w]

Download the Turgs Website Indexer on your Windows PC. The free version scans up to 100 links so you can verify it detects your broken links before purchasing.

Step-by-Step: Find Broken Links

Step 1. Launch the Turgs Website Indexer. Enter your website URL in the search box and click Find.

Step 2. The tool crawls your website in real time. You can watch the scan progress as it moves through each page.

Step 3. If you are on the free trial, click OK when the trial limit notification appears. The tool will still show you the broken links found within the first 100 URLs.

Step 4. Click the Broken Links tab in the results panel. You see a full list of broken links with three key columns: the status code (404, 400, etc.), the broken URL and the source page where the link appears.

Step 5. Export the list as a CSV or TXT file. This gives you a document you can share with your developer or work through systematically.

What to Do After You Find Broken Links

Finding broken links is the easy part. Fixing them is where most site owners get stuck. Here is a practical priority order:

1. Fix internal 404s first. Internal broken links are fully under your control. Update the link in the source page to point to the correct URL, or create a redirect from the broken URL to the new one.
2. Add 301 redirects for external links pointing at your dead pages. If other sites link to pages you have deleted, a 301 redirect sends those visitors and link equity to the correct page.
3. Remove or update outbound broken links. If you link to external sites that have gone offline, either find the new URL of the resource or remove the link.
4. Do not panic about timeout errors. Timeout errors may be temporary. Re-run the scan in 24 hours. If the same URLs time out consistently, investigate the external server or remove the link.

How Often Should You Scan for Broken Links?

For a small site (under 1,000 pages): once a month is enough. For an active blog or e-commerce site with frequent content changes: once a week. For enterprise sites with frequent CMS migrations: after every major deployment.

Running a broken link scan before and after any site redesign or content migration prevents the most damaging broken link situations.

Are you scanning a small personal site or a large site with thousands of pages?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a 404 error and a bad host error?

A 404 error means the server exists and responded, but the specific page does not exist. A bad host error means the domain itself cannot be reached. The domain may have expired or the DNS records may be incorrect.

Does the tool scan JavaScript-rendered links?

The Turgs Website Indexer scans static HTML links. JavaScript-rendered links that are added dynamically by the browser after page load may not be detected. For sites built entirely with React or similar frameworks, supplement with a browser-based crawl tool.

Can I scan a password-protected site?

Not directly. The tool crawls publicly accessible URLs. For password-protected areas, you would need to export the sitemap or a list of URLs and provide them manually as a crawl source.

How long does a scan take?

Scan speed depends on site size and server response times. A 500-page site typically scans in 2 to 5 minutes. A 10,000-page site may take 20 to 40 minutes.

What does the CSV export include?

The CSV file includes the broken link URL, the HTTP status code returned and the source page URL where the broken link was found. This gives your developer everything needed to locate and fix each broken link.

Is the free version enough for a small site?

The free version scans up to 100 links. For a small site with fewer than 100 pages, this is enough for a complete audit. For larger sites, upgrade to the licensed version for unlimited scanning.