How to Find Broken Links with Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool that every website owner should be using. Among its many features, it reports crawl errors that reveal broken links Google has found on your site. But GSC has significant limitations as a broken link checker. In this guide, we'll show you how to get the most out of Search Console's error reports and how to fill the gaps with a dedicated scanning tool.

What Google Search Console tells you about broken links

Google Search Console doesn't have a dedicated "broken link checker" feature. Instead, it reports crawl errors that Googlebot encounters while indexing your site. These errors include 404 pages, server errors, and soft 404s — all of which can indicate broken links.

You'll find this data in two main places:

The Pages report (formerly Coverage report)

Navigate to Indexing → Pages in Search Console. This report shows the indexing status of every URL Google knows about on your site. Look for these categories:

• Not found (404) — pages that return a 404 status code. These are URLs that Google tried to crawl and couldn't find.
• Soft 404 — pages that return a 200 status code but appear to be error pages. This often happens when a CMS shows a "page not found" message without sending the proper 404 status.
• Server error (5xx) — pages that returned a server error, which may indicate temporary or permanent issues.

The Links report

Navigate to Links in the sidebar. This report shows both internal and external links to your site. While it doesn't directly flag broken links, cross-referencing the linked pages with 404 errors from the Pages report reveals which broken pages are still receiving link equity.

Step-by-step: finding broken links in GSC

1. Open Google Search Console and select your property.
2. Go to Indexing → Pages and look at the "Why pages aren't indexed" section.
3. Click on "Not found (404)" to see the full list of URLs returning 404 errors.
4. Click on any URL and then click "Inspect URL" to verify the current status.
5. Check the referring pages — for each 404 URL, you need to find which pages on your site (or external sites) link to it.
6. Fix the issue by either restoring the page, setting up a 301 redirect, or updating the links that point to the broken URL. Our guide to fixing broken links covers each method in detail.

The limitations of using GSC alone

While Google Search Console is valuable, it has several critical limitations as a broken link detection tool:

1. It only shows URLs Google has tried to crawl

If a broken link exists on a page that Google hasn't crawled recently, or if the link leads to an external domain, GSC won't report it. You're only seeing a subset of your total broken links — the ones Google happened to find.

2. No external link checking

GSC tells you about broken pages on your site, not about outgoing links to other sites that have broken. If you link to an external resource that has since gone offline, GSC won't alert you. Yet these broken external links still hurt your user experience and can negatively impact your SEO.

3. Delayed reporting

Google Search Console data is not real-time. It can take days or even weeks for new crawl errors to appear in the reports. If a page breaks on Monday, you might not see it in GSC until the following week — or later.

4. No source page information

GSC tells you which URLs are returning 404 errors, but it doesn't always clearly show which pages on your site contain the broken links. You know the destination is broken, but you have to figure out where the link lives on your own.

5. Limited to Google's crawl frequency

Google doesn't crawl every page on your site every day. Low-priority pages might be crawled once a month or less. Broken links on those pages could go undetected for a long time.

Combining GSC with a dedicated scanner

The most effective approach is to use Google Search Console alongside a dedicated broken link checker. Here's why they complement each other perfectly:

• GSC shows you what Google sees — the errors that directly impact your search rankings.
• Broken Link Scan shows you everything — every broken internal and external link on your site, regardless of whether Google has found it yet.

A practical workflow looks like this:

1. Weekly: check Google Search Console for new crawl errors. These are your highest priority because Google has already found them.
2. Monthly: run a full scan with Broken Link Scan to catch everything GSC misses. Better yet, set up automated monitoring — including broken external links and issues on recently updated pages.
3. After changes: run a scan after any significant site update (new content, redesign, plugin updates) to catch breakage immediately instead of waiting for Google to discover it.

Prioritizing which broken links to fix first

When you have a list of broken links from both GSC and your scanning tool, fix them in this priority order:

1. Broken links on high-traffic pages — these affect the most visitors.
2. 404 errors found by Google — these are actively hurting your SEO.
3. Broken internal links — you have full control and they affect crawlability.
4. Broken external links on important pages — these hurt user experience on your best content.
5. Remaining broken links — fix everything else to keep your site clean.

Don't rely on one tool

Google Search Console is essential, but it was built for search performance monitoring, not broken link detection. It will always have blind spots because that's not its primary purpose. By combining GSC's Google-eye view with Broken Link Scan's thorough crawling — powered by advanced detection features — you get complete coverage and catch issues before they impact your rankings or your visitors' experience.