Fixing Broken and Self Links
Three causes of a missing link, and only one of them is the usual fix.
The link map tells you what is wrong. Deciding what to do about each one takes a moment of judgement, because a broken link is a symptom and there are three different causes.
Steps
Start with the missing links
These are the ones sending visitors to your 404 page. Work out which of three things each one is.
The page should exist and does not. This is the common case, especially with generated navigation and footer calls to action. Press Create Page — the name and address are filled in from the link, so the new page lands exactly where the link already points.
The page exists at a different address. Something was renamed. Fix the link to point at the real address, or set up a redirect from the old one if other things point at it too.
The link should not be there. Edit the section and remove it, or point it somewhere that makes sense.
Deal with links to draft pages
A Draft status means the page is built but not published. The fix is usually just to publish it.
If it is deliberately unpublished — a page you are not ready to show — then the link pointing at it is the problem, not the page. Remove the link until the page is ready.
Find out where a self-link actually is
A self-link is a link on a page pointing at that same page. Clicking it reloads and nothing happens, which reads as a broken button to a visitor.
Press the Self-link badge and you get its location, with a snippet of the surrounding copy so you can recognise where on the page it sits. From there Edit takes you to the page.
The snippet is the useful part. A page with eight buttons gives you no way to tell which one is the culprit; the surrounding words tell you immediately.
Fix the self-link
Click the button or link in the editor and change its destination.
The most common cause is a generated call to action on the page it is promoting — a "Get started" button on the Get Started page. Point it at what the visitor should do next instead, which is usually a form, a calendar or the next step in the sequence.
Rescan and check the numbers
Rescan re-reads the site. The goal is broken at zero and self-links at zero.
Total links and healthy links being equal is the state you want before taking a site live.
Result
No missing links, no self-links, and nothing pointing at an unpublished page.
