Broken Link Checker
Crawl the links found on a webpage and identify broken internal and external HTML pages with their HTTP status codes.
Safe breadth-first crawler checks internal pages up to 25 pages and samples up to 300 unique links with SSRF protection.
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About the Real Website Broken Link Checker
A healthy link profile is essential for both organic search visibility and frictionless user experience. Our production-safe crawl engine crawls internal pages up to 25 pages, discovers all reachable anchor tags, and verifies both internal navigation and external citations without relying on browser CORS or fake simulations.
Internal vs External Broken Links
Internal Links: These define your site architecture. If an internal link breaks, visitors and search engine bots hit dead ends, preventing indexing of valuable subpages.
External Links: Outbound references validate your claims and content authority. When outbound links lead to expired or dead domains, it degrades your editorial quality.
How to Resolve Link Issues
- HTTP 404 (Not Found): Restore the content or configure a server 301 redirect to the closest active page.
- HTTP 301/302 (Redirects): Edit your source templates or CMS content to link straight to the destination URL.
- HTTP 500/502/503: Check if the target server is down or temporarily overloaded.
- Restricted (401/403/429): Verify whether the link requires authentication or blocks automated bot crawlers.
Crawl Scope & Technical Limitations
- Page Limit: The scanner crawls up to 25 internal HTML pages per run using breadth-first queueing to respect edge runtime budgets.
- Link Cap: Analyzes up to 300 unique links per scan, strictly prioritizing internal links before external references.
- Static HTML Inspection: Extracts standard HTML anchor tags (
<a href="...">). Client-side JavaScript routing (SPA frameworks that execute only in the browser) may not be discovered. - Edge SSRF Shield: Never crawls localhost, private LAN CIDRs, or cloud metadata endpoints.
Broken Link Checker FAQs
Answers to common questions about broken link audits, redirects, and crawl limitations.
What causes broken links on a website?
Broken links (dead links) usually happen when target pages are deleted, URLs are renamed without setting up 301 redirects, domain names expire, or typos are introduced when manually typing links in HTML or CMS editors.
How do broken links hurt SEO rankings and user experience?
When visitors encounter a 404 Not Found error, they often bounce immediately to search results. For search engines like Google, dead links waste crawl budget, break link equity distribution, and signal poor website maintenance.
What is the difference between internal and external broken links?
Internal broken links point to missing pages on your own website, directly breaking core navigation and user journeys. External broken links point to missing resources on third-party domains, eroding your editorial credibility and trust.
How do I fix redirects and 404 errors found in the crawl?
For 404 errors, either restore the missing page or implement a permanent 301 redirect to the most relevant active URL. For redirected links (301/302), update your source HTML anchor href directly to the final destination URL to remove unnecessary latency and redirect chains.
What are the limitations of this website link crawler?
This server-side crawler parses static server HTML responses. Single-page application links rendered exclusively by client-side JavaScript, links requiring user authentication, and links protected by Cloudflare/CAPTCHA challenge firewalls cannot be verified by automated HTML crawlers.