How to Find Broken Links on Your Small Business Website (Free)
Use this free tool to fix all your broken links on your small business Squarespace website!
Whether you're running your own small business site or designing one for a client, checking for broken links is a must.
Broken links frustrate visitors, hurt your credibility, damage SEO, and can even cost you sales.
The good news?
There’s a quick and free way to check your entire site in just a few minutes.
Let’s walk through how to find broken links and fix them on your Squarespace site.
Before we get into it, if you’d prefer to watch and learn then click the video below!
How to find broken links on your small business website
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Whether you're running your own small business site or designing one for a client, checking for broken links is a must. Because honestly, broken links not only can frustrate your visitors, but they can also hurt your credibility, SEO, and cost you sales. So today I'll walk you through how to do it for free and why it matters. So let's get started. Okay, so here we are on the computer. I am currently on brokenlinkcheck. Com, and And what you're going to want to do is just enter in the URL for the website that you want to check, right? So this is one of my past clients' websites. And so I ran the checker before doing this video, and there were no broken links. So what I did was, with the permission, went in, added a broken link that I knew was going to hopefully be found by the checker. So that way we can use it as an example in this video. And so what we want to do is click Find Broken Links. And then you're just going to have the option one here. Leave that as the website, security code, type it in real quick.
[00:01:18.00]
And then you'll have two options here. Report distinct broken links only or report all occurrences of each dead link. And that's the one that we want to do so we can have a little bit more information here. So find broken links now. So it's going to go ahead and run through all of the pages. Now, okay, so it's completed, processed eight web pages, found one broken links. So this is the link that I put in there. So this is correct. And then it's telling me that the link text is Airbnbs, and you'll see why that is. And then page where found, it'll give us the URL or SRC. Now, we're just going to use URL, and it's going to take us to the page with the broken link. And then from there, what we want is... I obviously know where I put the broken link, but for this case, we're just going to copy the link text, and then we're going to go back to the page, click on Command F or Control F to find text on the paste in the Airbnbs, and then it's going to tell us exactly where we can find the broken link.
[00:02:37.12]
Then when we click, I'm going to exit that out. Then we see here that this is hyperlinked. When we click on it, it definitely is trying to take us to a site that does not work. It is broken. Luckily for us, this site, like I said, I only have the one broken link, which is an easy fix. Then I go back into Squarespace, edit it, come down here, and remove the link, and then save and exit. And that is what you'll want to do for any and all broken links that you will find on your website. So now that I fixed it, I'll just exit these out, go back here, and we'll just run it again real quick, if I get this code right. And And then click on Find Broken Links Now. And in just a few seconds or minutes, however long it'll take, it should tell us that no link was found. Okay, so I paused it for just about 10 seconds and then it finished. So it says completed, processed eight web pages, found zero broken links. So that is exactly what you want. So that's It might seem like a small detail, but broken links can really hurt your business website in big ways, especially because people lose trust when your site doesn't work right.
[00:04:11.08]
And if you're a web designer like me and you work with clients every day building their websites, then you want to do this before you hand it off to them. And if you forget, then just run it. And if you find anything, then just say, Hey, I found this, and I'm happy to fix these things for free. It's no big deal. It's the little things that just go a long way, right? So if this was helpful, hit the like button and say hi in the comments below. Let me know if you have any questions, and don't forget to subscribe for more small business website tips just like this. And hey, if you want to keep the street going, you can check out this video where I walk you through six secret Squarespace shortcuts to speed up your workflow.
Step 1: Use BrokenLinkCheck.com
Head over to BrokenLinkCheck.com.
Find broken links quick and easy
Enter your website’s URL.
Complete the security code.
Choose the option: “Report all occurrences of each dead link.” This gives you more detailed results.
Click Find Broken Links Now.
The tool will scan your site and give you a report of any broken links it finds, including:
The exact link text
The page where the link appears
Whether it’s a URL or image source
Step 2: Locate the Broken Link on Your Site
Once the report shows a broken link, copy the “link text” from the report.
Open the page where the link appears.
Use Command + F (Mac) or Control + F (Windows) to search for the link text.
This highlights the broken link so you can quickly find it.
Click on it to confirm it’s broken.
Step 3: Fix It in Squarespace
Now it’s time to clean things up.
Open your Squarespace editor.
Navigate to the page and section where the broken link lives.
Either update the link with the correct URL or remove it entirely.
Save and exit.
That’s it!
Ready to work with a designer to get an awesome, high-converting website? Book a call and let’s chat!
Step 4: Run the Check Again
After fixing your links, run your site through BrokenLinkCheck.com one more time.
If it reports zero broken links, you’re good to go. This only takes a few minutes but ensures your site is error-free.
Why Broken Links Matter
It might feel like a small detail, but broken links send the wrong message to your audience. They can:
Make your business look unprofessional.
Frustrate visitors and drive them away.
Hurt your SEO rankings (Google doesn’t like broken pages).
Cost you potential sales if someone can’t reach the info they’re looking for.
And if you’re a web designer, checking for broken links is something you should always do before handing off a site to your client. It’s a simple step that shows professionalism and builds trust.
Final Thoughts
Broken links are easy to overlook, but fixing them can make a huge difference for your small business website. Take 10 minutes today to run your site through BrokenLinkCheck.com and keep your site clean, trustworthy, and working the way it should.
Abby Castillo
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Frequently Asked Questions
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At least once every few months, or anytime you update your site with new content or links.
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Yes. Google wants to deliver the best user experience, and sites with broken links signal poor maintenance, which can lower rankings.
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No, Squarespace doesn’t have a built-in checker (maybe they will add one tho!), which is why free tools like BrokenLinkCheck.com are so useful.
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Anything from blog post links, external resources, image URLs, or even navigation menu items if the page was deleted.
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If you can update it with the correct link, do that. If the resource no longer exists, it’s better to remove it completely.
