97.6% of established business websites have links from other websites pointing at pages that now return an error, and on a quarter of them more than 22.6% of all incoming links lead to a dead page. 39.4% of small business websites have the same problem.
Analysis of 500 established business websites and 249 small business websites · backlink index data, September 2026
Key Findings
- 1.97.6% of established business websites have backlinks, links from other websites, pointing at pages that no longer exist.
- 2.On a quarter of established business websites, more than 22.6% of backlinks point at pages that return an error, against 2% on the median established website.
- 3.The median established business website has 4,734 backlinks pointing at 1,400 dead pages, links it already earned that now lead nowhere.
- 4.91% of backlinks pointing at missing pages on established business websites are followed links, the kind that normally pass ranking value to the page they point at.
- 5.39.4% of small business websites have backlinks pointing at pages that no longer exist, and nearly one in ten loses more than a quarter of its backlinks this way.
Summary
A trade magazine wrote about a company's buying guide five years ago and linked to it. The company has since redesigned its website, and the guide now lives at a new address. Nobody added a redirect, so the magazine's link, and every reader who clicks it, lands on a "page not found" screen.
Links from other websites, called backlinks, are one of the main signals Google uses to decide which pages deserve to rank. They are also slow and expensive to earn. A backlink that points at a deleted or moved page sends its visitors and its ranking value to an error page, and the company that earned it usually has no idea.
Almost every established website is in this position. 97.6% have backlinks pointing at pages that return an error. For the median website it is 2% of its links; for a quarter of websites it is more than 22.6%, a large share of a link profile that took years to build and that a redirect could bring back.
What we measured
On September 23, 2026 we collected backlink data for 500 established business websites that appear in Google's top 10 for US searches, and for 249 randomly chosen US small business websites. For each website we recorded the total number of live backlinks, the number that point at a page returning an error, and the number of distinct pages those broken links point at. For the established websites we also looked at up to 1,000 links each that point at missing pages and counted the separate websites they come from.
A backlink is a link on another website that points to yours. A broken backlink points at an address on your site that returns an error, most often "404 not found" (the page is gone) or "410 gone" (it was removed on purpose). A dead page with backlinks is one of those addresses that other websites still link to. A followed link is one the linking site has not marked "nofollow", so search engines count it as a vote for the page.
Nearly every established website has links pointing at dead pages
12 of the 500 established websites had no broken backlinks at all. The median website has 145,224 backlinks in total, including 4,734 that point at one of 1,400 dead pages. Those pages were earned by content that someone later deleted, renamed or moved without a redirect: old campaigns, retired products, archived articles and pages lost in a redesign.
The links come from real websites. 76.8% of established websites have at least one other website linking to a page that returns "not found" or "gone". The average website has 20 separate websites linking to its missing pages and the median has 7. 19 established websites have more than 100, led by a nursing education directory with 346.
Half of established websites have 7 or fewer websites linking to their missing pages, a quarter have 21 or more and one in ten has 57 or more. The median established website has 7,621 linking websites in total, so the lost ones are a small slice of its link profile, but each is a website that already chose to link and would count again with a redirect.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 500 established business websites and 249 small business websites · backlink index data, September 2026
A quarter of established websites have lost more than a fifth of their links
The median figure hides a wide spread. The average established website has 16% of its backlinks pointing at dead pages, eight times the 2% median, because a large group has lost a big share of its link profile to deleted pages. On a quarter of established websites, more than 22.6% of backlinks lead to an error, and 121 of the 500 have more than a quarter of their links going nowhere.
| Share of backlinks pointing at dead pages | Established websites | Small business websites |
|---|---|---|
| None | 12 | 151 |
| Up to 1% | 182 | 25 |
| 1% to 5% | 114 | 32 |
| 5% to 10% | 33 | 5 |
| 10% to 25% | 38 | 12 |
| More than 25% | 121 | 24 |
These are links worth recovering. 91% of the backlinks pointing at missing pages are followed links, the kind that normally pass ranking value. Many were given because the page was a useful resource someone wanted to cite, which makes them the hardest links to earn again from scratch.
Content-heavy websites have millions of dead link targets
The websites with the most dead pages attracting links are the ones that publish and remove the most pages: classifieds, study tools, news publishers, stock photo libraries and marketplaces. Listings expire, articles move behind new addresses and product pages come and go, and every link to a removed page now ends at an error.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 500 established business websites and 249 small business websites · backlink index data, September 2026
At this scale no one can redirect every page by hand, but the same rule applies as on a small site: the dead pages with the most linking websites are worth a redirect, and the rest can be left as errors.
39.4% of small business websites have links to dead pages
Small businesses have far fewer links to lose. The median small business website has 108 backlinks from 73 websites, so each one counts for more. 24 of the 249 small business websites have more than a quarter of their backlinks pointing at dead pages, nearly one in ten. That usually follows a redesign that changed page addresses without redirects, or a move to a new platform that dropped old service pages.
For a small business, a lost link from a local newspaper, a supplier or a trade association can be the difference between ranking on page one and page two. 21.3% of small business websites have at least one other website linking to a page that returns "not found", and the average is 1.4 such websites each.
What this means for businesses
Export your backlinks from any backlink tool, filter to links whose target returns a 404 or 410 error, and sort the target pages by how many websites link to them. Give each of those pages a permanent (301) redirect to the closest live page. The linking websites do not need to change anything, and the value of links you already earned starts flowing again.
Before any redesign or platform move, list every address on your current site that has backlinks and make sure each one has a redirect target in the plan. Most of the broken links in this study were created by pages that were removed or renamed with no redirect. Our seo migration services start with that list, so a new website keeps the links the old one earned.
Need help with this? See our website migration services.
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<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/backlinks-to-dead-pages">98% of Established Websites Have Backlinks Pointing to Pages That No Longer Exist - Suff Digital</a></p>
Cite this study
Suff Digital. (2026). 98% of Established Websites Have Backlinks Pointing to Pages That No Longer Exist. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/backlinks-to-dead-pages
98% of Established Websites Have Backlinks Pointing to Pages That No Longer Exist - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/backlinks-to-dead-pages
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