How I Fixed Hundreds of Broken and Redirected External Links on My Website

External links are easy to forget. You add them to an article, publish it, and move on to the next task.

But websites change. Pages move, tools disappear, companies change domains, and old URLs stop working.

I discovered this problem on my own website (Electronicsforu.com) during a Semrush Site Audit. The crawl identified hundreds of broken and redirected external links across my articles.

I decided to review them and update the links that needed attention.

Here is how I found the issues, fixed them, and what I learned from the process.

What Problems Did I Find?

My audit revealed two main types of issues: redirected external links and broken external links.

1. Redirected external links

Some links were pointing to URLs that redirected visitors to another page.

This can happen when a website:

• Changes its URL structure.
• Moves to a new domain.
• Updates its documentation or blog URLs.
• Redirects HTTP pages to HTTPS.
• Changes the location of a product or resource.

For example, an article might link to http://example.com/old-guide/

But that URL redirects to https://example.com/resources/guide

The destination may still work perfectly. The issue is that the link does not point directly to the final URL.

A redirect is not automatically a problem. However, when you can identify the correct destination, linking directly to it can avoid unnecessary redirect hops.

2. Broken external links

Other links no longer worked as expected. Some returned 404 errors, while others pointed to removed resources or outdated pages.

These problems were particularly common in older articles that linked to tools, product pages, statistics, and industry reports.

A broken link matters most when it prevents readers from accessing a resource they need or verifying a claim in your article.

Do Broken External Links Hurt SEO?

I initially wanted to clean up these links because they appeared in my site audit. But it is important to separate technical audit issues from proven ranking problems.

A broken external link does not automatically trigger a Google penalty. Similarly, a redirected external link is not inherently bad.

There are still good reasons to fix problematic links:

• Better user experience: Readers can access the resources you recommend.
• More reliable references: Important claims are easier to verify.
• Cleaner navigation: Direct links can avoid unnecessary redirect hops.
• Better content maintenance: Reviewing links can reveal outdated information elsewhere in an article.

I also saw my Semrush Site Health score improve after the cleanup. That was an improvement in the tool’s audit metric, not proof that Google rankings improved because of the link fixes.

I did not expect a sudden ranking increase, and I would not recommend treating broken-link cleanup as a guaranteed ranking tactic.

How I Found Broken and Redirected External Links Using Semrush

I used Semrush Site Audit to crawl my website and identify problematic outgoing links.

Here is the process you can follow.

Step 1: Run a Site Audit

Open Semrush and select Site Audit for your website. If you have not set up a project, create one and configure the crawl.

Run the audit and wait for it to finish.

The results can help you identify issues involving broken external links, redirects, and other website problems. Available reports and labels may vary with the tool’s interface and plan.

Step 2: Find the Problematic External URLs

Open the relevant issue reports and review the external URLs flagged by the audit.

Look for information such as:

• The page on your website containing the link.
• The external URL linked from that page.
• The reported status or redirect destination, where available.

Export the affected URLs if the report supports exporting. A spreadsheet makes it easier to group issues, track changes, and avoid checking the same URL repeatedly.

Do not change every flagged URL immediately. First confirm what happens when the link is opened and whether the final destination is relevant.

How I Fixed Redirected External Links

Redirected URLs generally required less investigation than completely broken links.

Step 1: Check the final destination

I reviewed where each redirected URL eventually led.

For example:

Original link: http://example.com/old-tools/

Final destination: https://example.com/resources/tools

These are illustrative URLs, not actual URLs from my audit.

If the destination contained the same resource or the intended information, the next step was straightforward.

Step 2: Update the link in the article

I replaced the old URL with the final working URL wherever the change made sense.

This allowed readers to reach the destination directly without going through the old URL first.

However, I did not treat every redirect as an error. If a redirect was necessary and led to the correct page, there was no reason to remove it simply because it existed.

The goal was to improve the links, not to eliminate redirects at any cost.

How I Fixed Broken External Links

Broken links needed more manual review because a failed URL does not always mean the resource has disappeared permanently.

Step 1: Review each broken link

For every URL, I checked:

• What the original resource was about.
• Whether the page was temporarily unavailable or permanently removed.
• Whether the content had moved to another URL.
• Whether the resource was still useful to my article.

This helped me decide whether to update, replace, or remove the link.

Step 2: Find the updated resource

Sometimes, the content had simply moved.

I looked for the updated page on the same website and replaced the old URL when I found a suitable match.

For research, statistics, and technical guidance, I prefer the original publisher or official documentation when available.

Step 3: Replace dead sources when appropriate

When a resource had disappeared permanently, I looked for an alternative that supported the same point.

The replacement needed to be relevant, not just a working URL.

If a statistic or claim could no longer be verified, I also needed to reconsider the surrounding sentence instead of blindly adding another link.

Step 4: Remove links that no longer added value

Not every broken link needs a replacement.

If the resource was no longer useful and I could not find a relevant alternative, I removed the link. Where necessary, I updated the surrounding content as well.

Sometimes, removing an outdated reference is better than linking to a weak or unrelated source.

In the same way, internal links were also creating the problem. Check how I fixed broken and redirected internal links.

What Changed After the Cleanup?

I noticed several practical benefits from the process.

The site audit became cleaner. The audit identified fewer of the broken and redirected external-link issues I had addressed, improving my Semrush Site Health score.

The references were more useful. Readers could reach the updated resources instead of encountering links that no longer worked as intended.

I found other outdated content. While reviewing the links, I came across articles that needed more than a URL change. Some references and surrounding information also needed attention.

I did not measure a ranking increase attributable to this cleanup, so I would not claim that fixing the links directly improved organic traffic.

The main value was better-maintained content and a more reliable reading experience.

How Often Should You Audit External Links?

There is no single schedule that works for every website.

If you publish regularly or maintain hundreds of articles, periodic crawling can help you catch problems before they accumulate. For a smaller website, checking links when updating older articles may be enough.

I would prioritize:

• Important articles with many external references.
• Pages that cite research, statistics, or official documentation.
• URLs flagged by your crawler as broken.
• Links to tools and products that may have changed.
• Older articles that have not been reviewed for a long time.

When you fix an issue, rerun the relevant checks to confirm that the updated URL works as expected.

Conclusion

Finding hundreds of broken and redirected external links reminded me that publishing content is only part of website maintenance.

External websites change, and links that once worked can become outdated. A periodic audit helps you find these problems and decide which ones deserve attention.

I used Semrush Site Audit to identify the URLs, then reviewed and fixed them individually. The important part was not removing every redirect or replacing every dead URL. It was making sure the links continued to serve a purpose.

Audit your links, verify the problems, and fix what genuinely needs fixing. Do it for your readers and the quality of your content, not because every broken link is a Google ranking issue.