Why broken links and broken signup paths cost you customers
A visitor who hits a broken link or a signup button that does nothing rarely tells you. They leave, and the only trace is a conversion rate that is a little lower than it should be. Most teams find out when a customer finally mentions it, or when someone on the team clicks through the site by chance.
Broken links are the easier half of the problem. Pages get renamed, products get retired, and a link in last year's blog post now leads to a "page not found" screen. A link checker can find those by requesting every link and noting which ones fail.
A broken signup path is harder to spot, because nothing about it looks broken from the outside. The "Start free trial" button can point to a page that loads perfectly, while the form on that page fails when someone submits it. A script error can stop the button from responding at all. A form can submit successfully and then send the visitor to an old thank-you page, or send the signup nowhere your team will see it. A link checker reports all of these as healthy, because every address it requested answered.
The only way to know your most important path works is to walk through it the way a customer would, from the first click to the final confirmation. That work is tedious to do by hand and easy to forget after a site update, which is why it suits an AI agent that can drive a browser, read the results, and repeat the check every time something changes.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Keeping the path to becoming a customer open is part of that job.
How Kite finds broken links and broken signup paths
Kite starts by working out which path matters most on your site. From its research on your business, it already knows what you want visitors to do, whether that's starting a trial, booking a demo, joining a waitlist, or buying a product. That path gets tested first and most thoroughly.
Then Kite checks your site in three ways. It collects the links across your pages and checks where each one leads. It opens your main call to action in a real browser and follows it to the end. And it reads your analytics for places where visitors stop or run into errors. When it finds a problem, it fixes the link, the page, or the form, and it checks again after the fix goes live.
- How do I find broken links on my website?
- How can I test that my signup or checkout button actually works?
- How do I know if visitors are hitting dead ends on my site?
- Fix the links, pages, and forms that are broken
- Check again after every change
How do I find broken links on my website?
Kite finds broken links by collecting every link on your pages and checking where each one actually leads. It starts from your sitemap and your navigation, opens each page, and gathers the links in the menus, footers, buttons, and body text.
For each link, Kite records whether the destination loads, returns a "not found" error, fails with a server error, or redirects somewhere you might not expect. A link to /pricing that now redirects to your homepage is technically working, but the visitor who clicked it wanted prices and didn't get them.
Each problem comes back with the page the link sits on, the words in the link, and where it was supposed to go. That context helps you decide what to do about it. A broken link in your main navigation needs fixing today. A dead link in a three-year-old blog post to an article that no longer exists can wait for the next content cleanup.
Kite also checks a few things that make broken links worse than they need to be. It confirms that an address that doesn't exist on your site shows a real "not found" page rather than a normal-looking page, since search engines can otherwise treat dead links as real pages. It also confirms that the pages your sitemap lists actually load.
How can I test that my signup or checkout button actually works?
Kite tests your signup or checkout path by clicking through it in a real browser, the same way a visitor would. It opens the page, finds your main call to action, clicks it, and watches what happens next.
Say your homepage button reads "Book a demo." Kite clicks it and checks that the booking page loads, that the form fields accept input, and that submitting the form leads to the confirmation the visitor should see. If the button does nothing, the form shows an error, or the confirmation page is missing, Kite reports the exact step where the path stopped and what it saw there. It also records any errors the page raised in the browser, which often explain why a button stopped responding.
Kite can run the same path at the width of a phone screen. A menu that hides the signup button on mobile, or a form that runs off the side of a small screen, is a broken path for every visitor on a phone even when the desktop version works.
For a checkout, Kite follows the path through the cart and the checkout pages and stops before it enters payment details or places an order, unless you tell it otherwise. If you want the last step tested too, Kite can hand you the browser at that point so you can enter a card and finish the purchase yourself.
How do I know if visitors are hitting dead ends on my site?
Your analytics show dead ends that a single test can miss, because real visitors take paths no test would think to try. Kite reads that data to find where people stop.
On a website Kite hosts, its built-in analytics record form submissions, clicks on calls to action, and the steps of a funnel. Kite can build a funnel from your landing page to your confirmation page and break it down by device, country, or traffic source. A step where almost nobody continues, or where mobile visitors drop off while desktop visitors don't, points to a page worth testing. If form submissions on a page fall to nothing right after a change, Kite treats that as a sign the path broke and checks it.
The same analytics include error reports. They show the JavaScript errors visitors ran into, how often each one happened, and which pages and visitors were affected. An error that only appears on your signup page is a strong lead, because it can stop a button or a form from working while the page looks normal.
If your product events go through Segment into PostHog or Amplitude, Kite reads the funnel there. It can tell a real drop in signups apart from broken tracking, such as an event that stopped firing after a release. When Kite watches your PostHog events, it tells your team right away when something like a broken page can't wait.
Playbooks for this step
- How to find broken or leaky funnels with Segment and AmplitudeFind the funnel step where visitors stop, and check whether the cause is the page or the tracking, when your events flow through Segment into Amplitude.
- How to find broken or leaky funnels with Segment and PostHogDo the same for a product that sends its events through Segment into PostHog.
Fix the links, pages, and forms that are broken
Kite fixes the problems it finds instead of handing you a list. For each one, it decides on the right repair:
- A link to a page that moved. Kite updates the link to the page's new address.
- A link to a page that no longer exists. Kite points the link to the closest page that still covers the same thing, or removes it when nothing fits.
- An old address that other sites still link to. On a site Kite hosts, Kite adds a redirect so visitors arriving from outside land on the right page.
- A button or form that doesn't work. Kite repairs the button, the form, or the script error behind it, then clicks through the path again to confirm it now reaches the end.
On a site Kite hosts, the fixes wait as unpublished changes that you can preview before anything goes live. When you publish, Kite shows the list of changes and publishes them together. If your site runs on Webflow, Kite makes the changes through your connected account, and on WordPress it fixes the links in your blog posts. For a site you imported from GitHub, Kite commits the fix to your repository, or opens a pull request if you protect your main branch.
Check again after every change
A path that worked last month can break with the next site update, so Kite keeps checking. Shortly after each publish on a site Kite hosts, it checks that the homepage loads, that the pages in your sitemap load, and that missing addresses return a real "not found" page. It emails the person who published if it finds a problem. Each week, Kite also re-checks any site it hosts that was published or edited in the last 30 days.
You can also ask Kite to run the full check on a schedule, such as every Monday morning. Each run collects your links, clicks through your main call to action, and compares the results with the last run. If your team uses Slack, the results go to the channel you choose. If not, Kite emails them to you, and replying to the email continues the conversation.
For broader monitoring of your site, such as speed, outages, and errors across every page, see Monitor your website for problems and errors.
What you get
A broken link report
Every link that leads to a missing page, a server error, or the wrong destination, with the page it's on, the link text, and where it was meant to go.
A tested signup or checkout path
A step-by-step account of what happened when Kite clicked your main call to action, including the exact step where the path stopped and any errors the page raised.
The dead ends in your data
The funnel steps where visitors stop and the errors they hit, so you know which pages to test next.
Fixes, ready to publish
Updated links, redirects, and repaired forms and buttons, which go live once you approve them.
Repeat checks
The same tests after each publish and on the schedule you set, so a path that breaks gets caught in days, not months.
How to get started
Tell Kite what you want checked in plain language. You might say, "Check our site for broken links and make sure the free trial signup works," or "Click through our checkout and tell me if anything is broken."
Kite proposes which pages and which path it will test, based on what it knows about your business. Once you agree, it runs the checks and comes back with what it found and the fixes it recommends. Approve the fixes and Kite makes them. Once you trust its fixes, you can let Kite publish them without asking each time.
Kite can check any public website without anything connected. To fix problems on a site Kite doesn't host, connect Webflow or WordPress, or import the site from GitHub. To read funnels and product events from your own analytics, connect PostHog, Amplitude, Segment, or Google Analytics. You can work with Kite in your browser or in Slack.
Integrations used to find broken links and broken signup paths
Kite checks links and clicks through your pages with its own built-in browser, so the checks themselves need nothing connected. Connections help in two places: reading the analytics that show where real visitors stop, and fixing problems on a site Kite doesn't host.
Find where visitors stop
Read your signup funnel and product events, and hear right away when an event points to a broken page.
Find the funnel step where visitors stop and compare it across devices and traffic sources.
Check whether the events your funnel depends on are still arriving, so broken tracking isn't mistaken for a broken path.
Read traffic and conversion numbers for a site Kite doesn't host, so Kite can see where visitors leave on the way to signing up.
Common questions
Is a free broken link checker enough?
A free broken link checker is a good way to find links that lead to missing pages, and it works well for a one-time cleanup. It can't test whether your signup or checkout path works, because that requires clicking buttons, filling in forms, and seeing where the visitor ends up. Kite does both and then fixes what it finds. For a look at dedicated tools in this category, see The best website monitoring tools for catching broken links and broken signup pages Coming soon .
How do I fix a broken link on my website?
Fix a broken link by pointing it to the right page. If the page moved, update the link to its new address. If the page is gone, link to the closest page that covers the same topic, or remove the link. If other websites still link to the old address, add a redirect from the old address to the new page so their visitors don't land on an error. Kite makes all three kinds of fixes on a site it hosts, and updates links through your connected Webflow or WordPress account.
Will testing my signup form create fake signups?
A full test submits the form for real, so it creates a real entry in whatever the form feeds, such as your email list or CRM. Kite tells you what it submitted, so you can recognize the test entry and remove it. If you'd rather keep test entries out entirely, ask Kite to stop at the last step before submitting, and it checks everything up to that point.
Can Kite test the steps after signup, inside my product?
Yes, once someone on your team signs in for it. Kite can hand you its browser at a sign-in screen, and after you log in, it saves that login for later checks. From then on, it can follow the path past the signup form into your product, such as confirming that a new account lands on the right welcome page.
How often should I check my site for broken links and signup problems?
Check your main signup or checkout path after every change to the pages it runs through, and run a full link check at least once a month. Sites with frequent content updates or campaign landing pages benefit from a weekly check. Kite runs its checks after each publish on a site it hosts, and you can schedule the full check as often as you like.