Are you experiencing broken links reported by SemRush and a link checker website after exporting your Webflow site? Although all the links work, you're still finding it strange. Have you encountered this issue before and found a solution? Thank you.

Broken links appearing in SemRush or link checkers after exporting your Webflow site can result from how Webflow handles relative paths or non-exported CMS content. Even if the links seem to work in the browser, they may trigger false positives in crawlers.

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1. Check for CMS and Webflow-Specific Paths

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• Webflow CMS content will not export with the site. If you've linked to CMS Collection Pages and then exported the site, those links will break unless you’ve manually recreated those pages.
• Links like /blog/post-title or /project/my-project may still work locally if you've created equivalent static pages, but crawlers will flag these as broken if there’s no matching HTML file in the exported directory.

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2. Review Relative vs Absolute Paths

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• Ensure your links are properly mapped to exported files. For example:
• Relative links like /about require a corresponding about.html in the root of the export folder.
• If you've used folders like /blog/post-1, Webflow may nest this as blog/post-1.html or blog/post-1/index.html, depending on how you configured slugs.
• Some crawlers don't interpret Webflow-style folder slugs (e.g., /folder-name/ leading to folder-name/index.html), and may mark them as 404s.

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3. Look for JavaScript-Injected Links or Lazy-Loaded Content

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• Link checkers may not parse JavaScript-generated content, such as links added dynamically with custom code or loaded via interactions.
• Check if links appear via interactions or AJAX behavior, which may not render in crawlers.

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4. Confirm with a Local Server Environment

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• Exported Webflow files often expect a server-like environment. Opening the HTML files directly in a browser (file://) may mimic working links that don’t actually function on a live server or in crawlers.
• Test in a local server environment (e.g., using VS Code's Live Server) and check the link behavior more accurately.

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5. Analyze Reports from SemRush and Other Tools

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• Download or expand the list of reported broken URLs.
• Compare each with your exported file structure to ensure the paths truly exist.
• Identify whether these are false positives (e.g., trailing slashes causing mismatches) or genuine broken links.

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6. Fix by Adjusting URLs or Creating Redirects

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• For broken links caused by missing pages, either:
• Add matching static HTML files, or
• Update the links to point to available static equivalents.
• For common SEO tools, add redirects on your hosting platform to resolve any legacy or expected paths (e.g., project-1 to project-1.html).

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Summary

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SemRush and link checkers may report broken links after extracting a Webflow export due to non-exported CMS pages, misinterpreted folder paths, or JavaScript-rendered links. Review CMS usage, check all link paths against the actual exported files, and ensure consistent static equivalents exist. Use a local server to accurately simulate live site behavior.