In September 2026 we tested 13,045 links on 371 med spa homepages across 21 US cities. 60 of those homepages (about 1 in 6) had at least one link that opened a "page not found" screen. About half of the dead links pointed at a treatment or service page. A separate 36 sites still listed leftover test pages in the sitemap they give Google. Here is what breaks, why, and how to find and fix it on your own site in an afternoon.
How we checked 371 med spa homepages
We collected independent med spa websites in 21 US metros from four Google searches per city ("med spa", "medical spa", "botox" and "aesthetic clinic" plus the city name), then ran each one through the same checks as our free website grader. The full method and city results are in our study of 389 med spa websites.
For this slice we looked at two checks. The first followed every link on the homepage that points to another page on the clinic's own site, up to 50 per homepage. A link counted as dead only if it returned a not-found or server error twice, with a pause between tries, so a slow server on a busy afternoon didn't count against anyone. 371 homepages answered fully. The second check opened the clinic's sitemap and looked for live pages with test-style addresses such as /hello-world/ or /botox-copy.
Which links break on med spa websites
The 60 homepages held 96 dead links, under 1% of everything we tested. Most sites had one: 42 had a single dead link, 9 had two, and 9 had three or more (the worst had seven). We recorded the address for 95 of them, and they fall into a few clear groups:
- Treatment and service pages: 49. Links labelled "PDO Thread Lift", "Microneedling", "Sculptra", "HydraFacial" or a plain "Learn more" under a treatment card. This is the link a patient clicks when they have already decided they are interested.
- Unpublished or placeholder pages: 17. Addresses such as /?page_id=4868 are WordPress's raw address for a page by its ID number. When that page was never published or has been deleted, staff who are logged in can still see it and every visitor gets an error. One clinic's "Semaglutide" and "Tirzepatide" links both pointed at pages like this, and a few links pointed at leftover placeholders such as /null.
- About, provider, location and blog pages: 12. A provider's bio, a "Staff" page, "Locations", "All articles".
- Memberships, pricing, offers and shop pages: 11. "Memberships" alone was dead on five homepages, along with a pricing page, a price list, a holiday gift card product and a skin care shop.
- Booking links: 3. Two "Book now" or "Book a consultation" buttons and one "Virtual consultation" link led nowhere.
- Legal pages: 3. Two terms-and-conditions links and one HIPAA notice.
93 of the 95 returned a plain not-found error. Two returned a server error on both tries, which can mean a page that is broken rather than missing.
Why med spa links go dead
The addresses themselves show how most of these happened. A clinic renames a page from /microneedling-in-nashville/ to something shorter and the homepage card keeps the old address. A treatment is dropped, its page is deleted, and the menu item stays. A page is built as a draft, added to the menu before launch, and never published. A site moves from one platform to another and the old /pages/juvederm style of address stops existing.
None of these show up when the owner looks at the site, because the owner rarely clicks their own "Memberships" link. They show up when a patient does. That is why they collect on sites that nobody checks after launch, and why a monthly link check belongs in any website maintenance plan.
Leftover test pages in the sitemap
36 of the 372 sitemaps we could read (about 1 in 10) listed at least one leftover page that anyone could open. We found 42 of these pages:
- "Hello world!" posts: 11. The sample blog post WordPress creates on every new install.
- Pages called test or testing: 11.
- Duplicated pages: 10. Copies made while editing and never deleted, such as /kybella-copy, /dermal-fillers-copy and /copy-of-home. One clinic had four.
- WordPress's default "Sample Page": 7.
- Untitled pages: 3.
A sitemap is the list of pages a site asks Google to crawl and show, as Google's sitemap documentation describes. A duplicated filler page competes with the real one for the same search, and a "Hello world!" post can appear in results under the clinic's name. 8 sites had both problems: dead homepage links and test pages in the sitemap.
Do broken links hurt a med spa's Google ranking?
Mostly no, and it helps to be clear about this before anyone sells you an emergency SEO fix. Google has said for years that 404 errors don't harm a site's ranking on their own. Duplicate and test pages in a sitemap are a different matter, because they ask Google to spend attention on pages that shouldn't exist.
The cost of a dead link falls on the patient. Someone who taps "PDO Thread Lift" and gets "page not found" can reasonably conclude you no longer offer it, and the next clinic in their search results is one tap away. Half of the dead links in our sample sat exactly there, between interest and a booking. That is the same reason one page per treatment matters: each treatment page has to exist and load before it can book anyone.
How to find and fix broken links on your med spa website
- Run the check. Put your homepage into the free website grader. It runs the same link and sitemap checks as this study, lists the dead links it finds with the button text that points to each one, and takes about 30 seconds.
- Check Search Console. In Google Search Console, open Indexing, then Pages, and look for "Not found (404)". These are addresses Google tried and failed to load, including ones linked from other sites.
- Redirect, don't just delete the link. If the treatment still exists under a new address, add a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one, so old links, bookmarks and Google all land on the right page. WordPress does this with a redirect plugin, Squarespace with URL Mappings in its settings, and Wix with the URL Redirect Manager in its SEO settings.
- Remove links to treatments you have dropped. Point them to the closest treatment you still offer or take the card off the homepage.
- Check menu links that end in ?page_id=. If a visitor who isn't logged in gets an error there, the page behind it is unpublished or deleted. Publish it or take it out of the menu.
- Delete leftover pages. Remove "Hello world!", "Sample Page", test pages and "-copy" duplicates, then confirm they are gone from your sitemap.
- Recheck after every treatment change. Adding, renaming or dropping a treatment is the moment links break.
If your check turns up more than a few problems, or you aren't sure which page a link should point to, request a free audit. We review the site by hand and send back the top three fixes, broken links included, within 24 hours.