Free Broken Link Checker

Scan any web page for broken links. Enter a URL below to find dead links, redirects, and HTTP errors that could be hurting your SEO and user experience.

Why Broken Links Hurt SEO

Broken links are one of the most common technical SEO issues. When search engine crawlers encounter dead links on your site, it wastes your crawl budget and signals that your website may not be well-maintained. For users, broken links create a frustrating experience that increases bounce rates and reduces trust in your brand.

• Wasted crawl budget: Search engine bots spend time following links that lead nowhere instead of discovering and indexing your valuable content.
• Lost link equity: Internal links pass PageRank and authority through your site. Broken internal links break this flow, weakening your overall site authority.
• Poor user experience: Visitors who hit 404 pages are more likely to leave your site, increasing bounce rate and decreasing engagement metrics.
• Reduced trust signals: Search engines may lower your site's quality score if they detect many broken links across your pages.

Common HTTP Status Codes

How to Use This Tool

1. Enter a URL in the input field above. You can enter a full URL like https://example.com/page or just the domain like example.com.
2. Click "Check Links" to start scanning. The tool will fetch the page, extract all links, and check each one for HTTP errors.
3. Review the summary at the top to see how many links are healthy, redirecting, or broken.
4. Examine the detailed table to see each link's URL, anchor text, internal/external type, and HTTP status code.
5. Fix broken links by updating or removing them from your page to improve your SEO health.

How to Fix Broken Links

Once you have identified broken links on your page, here are the recommended approaches to fix them:

• Update the URL: If the destination page has moved to a new URL, update your link to point to the new location.
• Set up redirects: For internal broken links, create a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This preserves link equity and ensures users reach the right page.
• Replace with an alternative: If the original resource is gone entirely, find a similar resource to link to instead.
• Remove the link: If no suitable replacement exists, remove the broken link from your content.
• Update redirect chains: For links that return 3xx codes, update them to point directly to the final destination URL. This reduces load time and preserves more link equity.
• Use the Wayback Machine: If the external content is gone, check web.archive.org to find an archived version you can reference.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a broken link?

A broken link (also called a dead link) is a hyperlink that no longer works because the destination page has been moved, deleted, or the URL was typed incorrectly. Broken links return HTTP 4xx or 5xx error codes, most commonly 404 Not Found.

How do broken links affect SEO?

Broken links negatively impact SEO in several ways: they waste crawl budget when search engine bots follow dead links, they break the flow of link equity (PageRank) through your site, they create poor user experience which can increase bounce rates, and they signal to search engines that your site may not be well-maintained.

What HTTP status codes indicate a broken link?

HTTP 4xx codes indicate client errors (broken links): 400 Bad Request, 401 Unauthorized, 403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found, 410 Gone. HTTP 5xx codes indicate server errors: 500 Internal Server Error, 502 Bad Gateway, 503 Service Unavailable. Status codes 301 and 302 indicate redirects, which are not broken but should be updated to point directly to the final destination.

How often should I check for broken links?

You should check for broken links at least once a month, especially on high-traffic pages. Broken links can appear at any time when external sites change their URLs, when you restructure your own site, or when content is deleted. Regular checks help maintain a healthy link profile and good user experience.

What is the difference between internal and external broken links?

Internal broken links point to pages on your own website that no longer exist. These are fully within your control to fix. External broken links point to pages on other websites that have been removed or moved. For external broken links, you can either update the URL to the new location, find an alternative resource to link to, or remove the link entirely.