How to Fix Broken Links in WordPress

WordPress breaks links in boring, predictable ways: changed permalinks, deleted posts, media files renamed in the library, page builders storing URLs in serialized blobs, “coming soon” plugins returning 200.

Find

1. Open a template that actually ships (home, post, product). Scan it in Chrome. Advanced Broken Links Search will catch a[href] and images, including many builder widgets, because it reads the rendered page — not wp_posts only.
2. Run a whole-site crawl if the menu, blog, and shop disagree with each other.
3. Cross-check Search Console. GSC 404 guide.

WP plugins that cron your own XML-RPC or frontend: they help, they also false-positive, and they are one more plugin. Use them as a second opinion, not as a religion.

Fix

• Restored content — undelete the post if it still deserves a URL.
• Permalink change — install a 301 from the old slug. Yoast, Rank Math, or server rules. Test with a private window.
• Media — re-upload or run regenerate thumbnails; update the block if it still points at an old CDN path. Images.
• Menus / widgets — Appearance → Menus is a museum of dead custom links.
• Serialized builders — if a scan finds a URL that search-replace in the database would corrupt, edit the widget in the UI or use a serialized-safe search-replace.

Redirects

Prefer 301 at nginx/Apache or a redirect plugin that does not 302 everything “just in case.” Chains through /old → /old-2 → /new are how you get redirect chain tickets.

Prevent

• Do not change permalink structure on a live site for fun.
• When you delete a post, add the 301 in the same hour.
• After a theme dump, scan the header and footer — that is where agencies leave /old-about.

WordPress is not special. It is just the CMS most of the web still uses. Scan the rendered HTML. Fix the href. Redirect the rest. Other stacks: Bitrix, Tilda, Shopify, custom.