Free broken link checker
Enter a URL and this tool reads every link on the page, then requests each one and reports the status code it returned. Internal and external links both get checked, and each failure comes with the anchor text so you can find it in your own markup.
What the status codes tell you
A count of broken links is not actionable on its own, which is why this tool reports the code each one returned. 404 means the target is genuinely gone and the link needs updating or removing. 500 means the target site is broken right now — the link may be fine tomorrow, so re-check before you delete it. 403 is usually bot protection rather than a dead page. No response means DNS failed or the host never answered, which for an external link often means the domain has lapsed.
The distinction matters because the fix differs in each case, and treating them as one category leads to deleting links that were working.
Internal links are the expensive ones
A broken external link is embarrassing. A broken internal link costs you crawl budget and can leave a page unreachable. Search engines find pages by following links, so a page whose only inbound link is broken is effectively orphaned — it may stay in the index for a while on momentum and then quietly drop out.
This is one of the more common causes of a page disappearing from search for no apparent reason. If that is what you are chasing, why a website is not showing up on Google goes through the causes in order, and the indexability checker rules out the tag-level blockers in one lookup.
One page or the whole site
This tool checks one page at a time, up to 40 links, and finishes in a few seconds. That is the right shape for fixing a specific page you are working on. It is the wrong shape for auditing a site, where the links you most need to find are on pages you have forgotten exist.
The free website audit crawls multiple pages and reports broken links alongside everything else that affects whether people reach the site — page speed, Core Web Vitals, metadata, structured data, security headers and AI search visibility — then scores the result.
Broken link questions
- What is a broken link?
- A broken link is one that no longer reaches a working page. Most return HTTP 404 because the target was deleted or renamed, but a link can also be broken by a 500 server error, a domain that has expired, or a host that never answers at all.
- Do broken links hurt SEO?
- Broken internal links waste crawl budget and strand pages that would otherwise be discovered, so they cost you indirectly. Broken external links are not a ranking penalty, but they are a strong signal of an unmaintained page — and to a reader they read as neglect, which is the more expensive problem.
- How many links does this tool check?
- Up to 40 links from the page you enter, checked in parallel. The cap exists so the whole check finishes inside a single request rather than timing out halfway. A full site crawl visits many pages and is a different job, which the main audit handles.
- Why does a link show 403 when it works in my browser?
- A 403 usually means bot protection rather than a genuinely broken link. Cloudflare and similar services answer automated requests with 403 while serving browsers normally. The tool flags these separately so you can tell them apart from real failures.
- What is the difference between a 404 and a soft 404?
- A real 404 returns the 404 status code, which tells a crawler to drop the URL. A soft 404 returns status 200 with a 'page not found' message in the body, so search engines keep the URL in the index and keep re-crawling it. This tool reads status codes, so a soft 404 will appear as a working link — it is a content problem rather than a link problem.
- How do I fix broken links?
- If the target moved, update the link or add a 301 redirect from the old URL. If the target is gone for good, remove the link or point it somewhere still useful. For an external link to a dead site, the Wayback Machine copy is often a reasonable substitute.
- How do I find broken links on my website?
- Enter your page URL above and this tool crawls its links, following each one to report which return an error such as 404 or 410. For an ongoing check across a large site you can also review the Pages report in Google Search Console, which flags URLs it could not reach.
- What is the difference between internal and external broken links?
- An internal broken link points to another page on your own site that no longer exists, while an external broken link points to a page on someone else's site that has gone. Internal breaks are fully within your control to fix, whereas external ones may need the link removed or repointed if the target is permanently gone.
- What causes broken links?
- Broken links usually come from a page being deleted or renamed, a URL being mistyped, or an external site removing or restructuring its content. On your own site the common culprit is changing a URL without adding a redirect from the old address to the new one.
- Do broken outbound links hurt SEO more than broken internal links?
- Broken internal links are generally the bigger SEO concern because they waste crawl budget, break the paths that pass authority between your pages, and frustrate visitors mid-journey. A few broken outbound links mainly affect user experience, though a page full of them can signal neglect.
- How often should I check for broken links?
- A monthly check suits most sites, with a fresh scan after any migration, redesign or bulk content change, since those are when links break in numbers. High-traffic sites that publish often benefit from checking more frequently so a dead link does not sit on a popular page for weeks.
- How do I detect broken links on other websites?
- Enter any public URL above and the tool crawls that page's links and reports which ones fail, so it works on sites you do not own as well as your own. Checking a competitor or a resource page is a common tactic for finding dead links you could suggest replacing with your own content.