How to find [and fix] broken images on your website

Have you ever landed on a page where images didn’t load? Knowing how to find broken images on website pages is key to maintaining a professional look.

It’s a frustrating experience that disrupts the flow of information and lowers the overall user experience.

In this blog post, we’ll look at broken images – their causes, their impact, and how to fix them so your website stays visually clean and functional.

Let’s see how to identify and fix broken images with ease using tools for finding broken images.

What is a broken image?

A broken image on a website is like a missing piece in a puzzle. When you visit a page, instead of seeing a nice image, you see a blank space or a little icon that shows the image could not be loaded properly.

It’s like going to a museum to see a painting, but the painting is covered up or missing entirely.

This can happen for many reasons. Sometimes the website’s server, which stores all the images, is having issues and cannot deliver the image to your browser.

Other times, there is a mistake in the website’s code that tells your browser where to find the image, so it looks in the wrong place.

And sometimes, the image itself has been deleted, moved, or renamed, leaving a broken URL path.

Imagine reading a book and seeing a page where an image or illustration should be, but there is only white space. It’s annoying, right?

That’s how users feel when they come across broken images on your website. It disrupts the flow of the page and makes the website look unprofessional – making your company look unprofessional and untrustworthy.

So, fixing broken images is important for keeping your website running smoothly and providing a good experience for your visitors.

Understanding the impact of images

Making sure your website has no broken images is a simple but crucial part of running a website or webshop. Broken images, links, videos, and other malfunctioning elements are bad for your business.

Broken images are bad for your SEO as well. Here is why you should fix them:

User experience: Images play a vital role in the visual appearance of your website and in engaging visitors. When images fail to load, it creates a bad user experience. The page feels incomplete, unprofessional, and less trustworthy.

Google prioritizes user experience, so websites with better UX tend to rank higher.

Reduced bounce rates: When visitors see broken images, they are more likely to leave your website. High bounce rates signal to Google that the page is not providing valuable content.

This can lower the page’s ranking. By keeping all images working, you can keep visitors on your site longer and improve SEO.

Crawlability: Search engine crawlers use images to understand the content of a page. Broken images can confuse them and lead to incomplete indexing.

Pages with broken images may not rank as well. Making sure all images load properly improves crawlability and helps search engines index your content.

Better accessibility: Broken images also affect users who rely on screen readers. Good alt text provides context for those who cannot see the visuals.

According to the W3C image accessibility tutorial, images must include descriptive alt text. When images are broken or lack alt text, it creates a poor experience for people with disabilities.

Functional images with proper alt text improve accessibility and can indirectly help SEO.

Brand perception: Broken images give a bad impression of the brand. Visitors may think the site is outdated or poorly maintained.

This reduces trust. A site with working images feels reliable and professional. Search engines notice user interactions, which affects rankings.

All of these factors add up to better SEO and higher rankings in Google. By monitoring your images and fixing issues quickly, you improve both user experience and search performance.

A 2025 report found that addressing accessibility issues like broken images can lead to a 23% increase in organic traffic.

How to find broken images on website pages

As we have covered, it is important to give your visitors a smooth experience without broken images.

So, how do you find out if you have broken images on your site?

It can be done manually or by using SEO tools to make the process faster.

Manually checking broken images

Manually checking your site for broken images is boring and time-consuming.

You have to go through every single page one at a time and scroll carefully to notice any issues.

Manual checking is not optimal unless you have a very small site.

Using SEO tools to find broken images on website lists

You can use SEO tools to speed up the process of identifying broken images.

Tools like Morningscore and others can crawl your website and show you where broken images are, making them easier to fix.

This is the fastest way to find broken images and the best way to make sure all of them are detected.

How to find broken images using Morningscore

It’s very easy and fast to find broken images using Morningscore.

Morningscore was founded in 2018 and holds 4.5 stars on G2 from user reviews.

First, you need a Morningscore account (14 days free – no credit card required. No strings attached).

1. Set up your Morningscore account from the box above. Add your website and see Morningscore scan it right away.
2. In the top menu, click on “health”.
   
3. Scroll down to the issues table and select the category “Basic”. Check if any problems regarding “broken images” appear.
   
4. Click on the button “View all issues”.
5. Now the tab opens and you can see all pages with broken images. Click “show issues” on the page you would like to check.
   
6. A new tab opens which shows you the image URLs that are not working on the page.
   
7. Scroll down and follow the guide telling you exactly how to fix the broken image.
   

That’s it. You can now find and fix all of your broken images using Morningscore. Fast and easy.

How to find and fix broken images on website pages

The first step in fixing broken images is to detect them. By using Morningscore, this has already been done and you can start fixing the issues.

Let’s look at the possible solutions when you have broken images to fix.

Go to the affected page

First, open the page that Morningscore shows as having a broken image.

Visually inspect the page

Take a close look at the page. If you see boxes with broken image icons, that is likely the issue.

Check if the image matches the one from Morningscore

If you found a broken image by looking at the page, then right-click the broken image and choose “copy image address” or a similar function.

Paste the image URL into a text editor. Example: “https://website.com/img/broken-image.jpg”

Compare it with the URL in the Morningscore table. If it matches, it is time to either remove the image or replace it with a working one in your page editor.

A little trick

Maybe you did not find the issue by looking at the page. The broken image might be somewhere you cannot see.

Here is a reliable method: right-click anywhere on the page and select “Inspect”. It will open the code view.

Press CTRL + F to search and paste the URL from the broken image in Morningscore.

It should highlight where the image is in the code. Often, you will see text nearby that helps you identify the location on the page.

If you get 0 results, it means the image has already been removed or there are no longer broken images on the page. Rescan the issue in Morningscore and it should be resolved.

Reasons an image gets broken

I often hear that website owners don’t understand how they can have broken images when they are sure no changes were made.

How can it happen by itself? When learning how to find broken images on website systems, you will often find these common triggers:

• The image was accidentally moved or deleted.
• The URL path is incorrect.
• The image file is corrupted.
• The image cache is outdated or broken.
• The browser is not running JavaScript that renders images.
• Data transfer is slow or limited.
• Browser settings are configured to block images.
• Images are blocked by antivirus software or another external application on the user’s computer.

FAQ for broken images

Why are my images not showing up on my website?
Broken images can be due to incorrect URL paths, moved or deleted image files, file permission issues, server problems, or corrupted image files.

How can I check if my image URL is correct?
Verify the image URL in your HTML or CSS code. Ensure it matches the exact path and filename on your server, considering case sensitivity.

How do I fix corrupted image files?
Replace the corrupted image with a new, properly functioning file. You may need to re-upload the image to your server.

What are file permissions, and how do they affect image display?
File permissions determine who can access files on your server. Ensure your image files have the correct permissions set to allow public access.

How can I resolve server issues causing broken images?
Check your server status and configuration. Contact your hosting provider if there are ongoing server problems affecting image loading.

What role does JavaScript play in rendering images?
Some websites use JavaScript to dynamically load images. If JavaScript is disabled in your browser, these images may not appear.

How do I clear my browser cache to fix broken images?
Go to your browser settings, find the cache or browsing data section, and clear the cache. This can resolve issues with outdated or broken cached images.