Broken Links Finder
Find broken internal and external links on a page so you can clean up dead references, improve crawl flow, and stop sending visitors into avoidable 404s.
Let me paint you a picture: a visitor clicks a link on your site, expecting useful content, and lands on a dead page. They don't troubleshoot it. They don't refresh. They leave. Now multiply that by every broken link on your site, and you've got a slow bleed — crawl budget wasted, link equity leaking, and visitors bouncing into the arms of your competitors. This tool crawls a page, checks every link (internal and external), and shows you exactly which ones are dead so you can fix them before they do real damage.
Key takeaways
- Broken links waste crawl budget and dilute link equity. Every time Googlebot hits a 404, that crawl is wasted. It found nothing. It indexed nothing. The authority that link was passing deeper into your site? Evaporated.
- A single 404 won't tank you, but dozens signal neglect. Google says a few 404s are normal. But a site with hundreds of dead links tells search engines nobody's minding the store.
- External links break constantly. You can't control other people's websites. A partner shuts down, a resource page moves, and suddenly your carefully curated links point to nowhere.
- Fixing broken links is one of the fastest SEO wins available. Low effort, immediate impact, no technical wizardry required. It's the push-up of SEO — simple, effective, and most people still skip it.
Why broken links matter
Search engines follow links to discover and evaluate content. When Googlebot hits a 404, that crawl is wasted — it found nothing, it indexed nothing, and if that broken link was passing authority deeper into your site, that equity just vanished into thin air. Multiply this across fifty or a hundred dead links and you've got a compounding problem that gets worse every month you ignore it.
Visitors are even less forgiving. Someone clicks a link in your nav or blog post and gets a dead page. They don't pull out their detective magnifying glass to figure out what went wrong — they hit the back button and try the next result. Every broken link is a tiny vote of no confidence, and people pick up on that pattern faster than you'd expect.
The sneaky part? Broken links accumulate silently. You delete an old blog post and forget to update the three pages linking to it. A partner site goes dark and every outbound link you built to their resources dies overnight. Images get renamed during a redesign and suddenly half your visual content returns 404s. Without a scanner, you won't notice any of this until the damage is already done. That's not a great position to be in.
How to use this broken link checker
- Enter any URL. Paste the page you want to scan. The tool crawls every link on that page — internal, external, images, resource links, all of it. One URL in, a full link health report out.
- Review the summary. The top cards show total links checked, how many are broken, and how many are healthy. If broken links is zero, congratulations — you're one of the rare ones. If not, scroll down for the specifics.
- Fix from the table. Each broken link shows its URL, status code, type (internal or external), and whether it's a page link or a resource like an image. Prioritize: internal broken links first, then high-value externals.
How to fix broken links
Finding broken links is half the battle. Here's how to actually fix them, ranked by effectiveness.
301 redirect. If the content moved to a new URL, set up a permanent redirect from the old path to the new one. This preserves link equity, fixes the user experience, and tells Google exactly where the content went. It's the cleanest solution when the content still exists somewhere — like forwarding your mail after you move.
Update the link. If you control the page with the broken link, just change the href to the correct destination. For internal links, this is the simplest fix. Open your CMS, update it, save, done. Takes thirty seconds.
Remove the link. If the destination no longer exists and there's no replacement, remove the link entirely. A sentence without a link is better than a sentence with a dead one. If it was in a list of resources, cut the whole item — better a shorter list than a list that erodes trust.
Reclaim the link. For external broken links pointing to your competitors' dead pages, this is an opportunity in disguise. Reach out to the site owner, let them know their link is broken, and suggest your content as a replacement. This is a legitimate link-building tactic that works because you're solving a real problem for the webmaster. Everybody wins.
Frequently asked questions
How often should I check for broken links?
Do broken links directly hurt my Google rankings?
What's the difference between a 404 and a 410?
Should I fix internal or external broken links first?
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About Broken Links Finder
Find dead links before they quietly drag a page down
Broken links hurt user experience, weaken trust, and usually signal that a page has not been maintained in a while. They rarely destroy rankings on their own, but they do create friction for both visitors and crawlers, and they make a site feel sloppy fast.
This broken links finder helps you review a URL quickly so you can catch dead internal references, outdated outbound links, and pages that need cleanup before they become a larger quality problem.
Where to start
- Homepage and key service pages
- Posts that already rank or attract links
- Older content with lots of external references
Best follow-up actions
- Fix or redirect broken internal links immediately.
- Replace dead external sources with better live sources.
- Re-run high-value pages after migrations or major content updates.
What to use next
After cleanup, run the Website Auditor for broader technical issues or the Page Size Checker if the page also feels bloated or neglected.