SEO fix guide
Broken Backlinks
External sites link to pages on your site that return 404. These are lost link equity opportunities that can be easily recaptured with redirects.
Issue ID: OFFPAGE-BROKEN-BL-001
Severity: moderate
Impact: Med
Effort: S
Use this article when
- You need deeper remediation guidance than the issue card can show.
- You want CMS-specific steps before handing the fix to a developer.
- You want a repeatable re-check path after shipping the change.
What this issue is
External sites link to pages on your site that return 404. These are lost link equity opportunities that can be easily recaptured with redirects.
Why it matters
External sites link to pages on your site that return 404. These are lost link equity opportunities that can be easily recaptured with redirects. This affects how clearly search engines understand the page and how persuasive it looks in search results.
How we detect it
- FreeSiteAudit flags this issue when the rule for OFFPAGE-BROKEN-BL-001 fails and the page evidence points to Dom body.
- You can usually confirm this by checking the page source or the relevant page settings inside your CMS.
Evidence examples
Check the affected page source, rendered output, or relevant CMS setting to confirm the missing or incorrect element.
How to fix it
- 1Set up 301 redirects from broken URLs to the most relevant existing page
- 2Reach out to linking sites to request URL updates
- 3Monitor for new broken backlinks monthly
How to re-check it
- All backlinked URLs return 200 or redirect to relevant content
Related tools
This issue is best verified with the full FreeSiteAudit crawl rather than a single-point mini tool.