SiteAud!tLint Support

Warning Internal Linking

Links to broken external pages

Severity
Warning
Impact
Medium
Effort to fix
Low
Issue code
links_to_broken_external

Why it matters

This page links to external URLs that return errors or cannot be reached, which frustrates visitors.

How to fix it

Update the links to working pages or remove them.

What this means

This page links to one or more pages on other websites that are broken: they returned a 404 or 410, a 5xx error, or failed to connect. The evidence lists them with their status.

SiteAud!tLint checks external links after the crawl, following any redirects to the final page. Sites that block automated checks are not counted as broken: a 401, 403, 429 or LinkedIn's 999 is shown as unverified, and so are timeouts. See External link checking.

Why it matters

  • Visitors who follow the link land on an error page on someone else's site, and that reflects on yours.
  • Outbound links to sources and references support your content. A broken one removes the evidence a reader was promised.
  • Many broken outbound links suggest the content is out of date.

Common causes

  • The other site deleted or moved the page without a redirect.
  • The other site closed or changed domain.
  • A typo in the URL.
  • A temporary outage. A single 5xx can be a bad moment on the other server.

How to fix it

  1. Open the link yourself first. If it works in a browser, the failure was temporary or the site blocks crawlers; recrawl later before changing anything.
  2. If the page moved, update the link to its new address.
  3. If the page is gone, link to an alternative source, or use an archived copy from the Internet Archive for references that matter.
  4. If nothing replaces it, remove the link and adjust the sentence.

Verify the fix

Recrawl and compare. Pages whose external links now work drop out of the issue.

How it affects your score

Finding this issue on any page costs the Internal Linking score 3 points, plus up to 12 more depending on the share of crawled pages affected. Weakens rankings, crawling or measurement. Fix after critical issues.

Find the affected URLs

Open Crawl > Issues and pick Links to broken external pages. Each affected URL is listed with its evidence, and Copy URLs or Export URLs hands the list to a developer. The issue also appears in the Action Plan, ranked by impact (medium) and effort (low), and in the issues CSV under the code links_to_broken_external. After fixing, run a new audit and use Compare to confirm the URLs moved to fixed.

Guides that cover this issue