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What is Broken Link Checker?

Dead links waste user trust and crawl. Internal 404s strand visitors mid-journey and waste link equity paths. External 404s make resource and citation sections look abandoned. Large pages can contain dozens of hrefs — checking them by hand does not scale.

This Broken Link Checker extracts a[href] values, resolves absolute URLs, probes up to about 40 unique http(s) links with HEAD/GET fallback, and reports broken destinations (null, 4xx, or 5xx after capped redirects) with anchor text, internal/external type, final URL, and latency. Scoring subtracts documented points per broken link and when the sample truncates.

Use it on cornerstone articles, navigation-heavy hubs, post-migration templates, and footer-heavy layouts. Sitewide architecture and orphans stay on Internal Linking.

What are common questions about Broken Link Checker?

What problem does the Broken Link Checker solve?

It finds on-page hyperlinks whose destinations fail (4xx, 5xx, timeout) so you repair internal paths first and update external citations.

Who runs broken-link checks?

Content editors, SEO specialists, and QA teams run them on pillar pages, resource lists, and after CMS migrations.

How many links are sampled?

Up to 40 unique http(s) links per page. mailto, tel, javascript, and hash-only hrefs are excluded.

What severity applies to five or more broken links?

Five or more broken links in the sample are high severity. Fewer remain medium, with fix priority on internal 404s.

Do nofollow links get checked?

Yes. nofollow does not skip destination probes — user-facing hrefs still resolve to status evidence.

How does scoring work?

Scoring subtracts 8 points per broken link and 5 points when discovered links exceed the sample cap.

Are PDF and image links included?

HTTP(S) targets in a[href] are included. Script-injected links after hydration stay outside first-HTML extraction.

Where does sitewide link architecture continue?

On the Internal Linking page — orphans, hubs, and suggestions. This tool stays on-page and sampled.

What are the key features of Broken Link Checker?

On-page link extraction

Collects unique absolute http(s) anchors from HTML href attributes.

Capped destination probes

Checks up to 40 destinations with short timeouts and redirect follow limits.

Internal vs external split

Labels broken links by same-origin versus external host for fix priority.

Status evidence table

Lists status, final URL, latency, and anchor text for each sampled link.

Cap transparency

Reports discovered link counts when the sample truncates so dense pages stay honest.

Deterministic scoring

Applies documented penalties per broken destination and truncation.

How do you use Broken Link Checker?

Enter the page URL

Paste the HTML page that contains the hyperlinks under review.

Run the broken link checker

Extract hrefs, probe the capped sample, and build the status table.

Repair internal failures first

Update or redirect internal 404 destinations before chasing external orphans.

Why broken links hurt SEO and conversion

Internal broken links interrupt crawl paths between related pages and strand humans on error templates. External broken links — especially in “resources” or citation sections — signal neglected maintenance. Both show measurable status evidence: 404/410 for gone targets, 5xx for failing origin, null/timeout for unreachable hosts.

Prefer fixing same-origin failures first: they are under your control and affect navigation chrome, in-content hubs, and footers that appear sitewide.

Use cases: pillars, migrations, and resource pages

Pillar / guide refresh — Before republishing a long guide, sample all outbound hrefs so updated copy does not keep old product URLs.

Post-migration QA — After a URL structure change, run category templates and top posts; internal 404s dominate findings.

Footer and nav templates — One broken footer link multiplies across the site; catch it on a representative template page.

Citation and partner lists — External failures flag partners who moved domains; update or remove. For graph-level orphans and link suggestions, continue on Internal Linking.

Sampling limits (honest scope)

Caps of ~40 unique links keep dense hubs bounded. Discovered-count reporting tells you when truncation applied — re-check dense pages in sections or after trimming. mailto, tel, javascript, and hash-only fragments stay outside the sample. Relative paths resolve to absolute URLs before probing.

This is on-page sampling, not a whole-site crawl. Combine with sitemaps and status checks for inventory-wide dead URL discovery.

Free · API · MCPToolYour platform

Use Broken Link Checker three ways

The free Broken Link Checker on this page works in your browser. The same workflow is available via REST API for apps and via the remote MCP server for Cursor, Claude, and other agents — one API key, one plan, one quota. This tool is part of the seo-apis module under Digital Tools.

  • 1. Get an API keySign in and open Dashboard → API Keys (works for REST and MCP).
  • 2. Call or connectUse the REST API from your server, or paste the MCP URL into your agent config.
  • 3. Same key & creditsREST and MCP share one API key and monthly credit quota with this browser tool when the tool is API-backed.
Manage API keysRemote MCP setupAPI referenceCreate free account

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