Free Online Broken Link Checker

A broken link checker extracts the outbound links from a page and tests each destination from our server, flagging any that return a 404 or fail to respond.

This tool uses AI and sends your text to a secure API for processing. No data is stored after your session.

Instant results Secure AI processing No signup needed

How to Use This Tool

  1. Enter the URL of the page whose links you want to audit.
  2. Press Check — our server fetches the page and extracts its outbound links.
  3. Each destination is tested and shown with its status code in the results table.
  4. Focus on rows flagged broken (4xx, 5xx or a failed request shown as status 0).
  5. Fix or remove the broken targets, then re-run to confirm the count drops to zero.

What Is a Broken Link Checker?

Broken links are URLs that no longer resolve — they return a 4xx or 5xx status, or fail entirely. They frustrate visitors, waste crawl budget when search engines repeatedly hit dead targets, and signal that a page is poorly maintained. The status codes are defined by HTTP semantics in RFC 9110, where 404 Not Found and 410 Gone mark missing resources and 5xx codes mark server failures.

We fetch the page on our server, parse out its anchor links, and test up to 40 unique destinations, preferring a lightweight HEAD request and falling back to GET when a server rejects HEAD. Running this server-side is essential: browsers block cross-origin requests, so client-side JavaScript cannot legally fetch and test links on other domains. Anchors, mailto:, tel: and javascript: links are skipped because they have no remote target.

This is built for auditing a single important page — a key landing page, a cornerstone article — rather than crawling an entire site, which needs a dedicated crawler.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many links does it check?
It extracts the links from the page you enter and tests up to 40 unique destinations. For a full-site crawl you would need a dedicated crawler, but this is ideal for auditing a single important page.
What counts as broken?
Any link that returns a 4xx or 5xx status, or that fails to respond at all (shown as status 0), is flagged. 2xx and 3xx responses are treated as working.
Why are some links skipped?
Anchors (#), mailto:, tel: and javascript: links are ignored because they have no remote target to test. The tool focuses on real HTTP and HTTPS URLs.

Published by the WeGotEveryTool team. We build and test every tool in-house and update pages when the underlying spec, formula, or recommendation changes.

Reviewed: May 2026. Disclaimer: this tool is provided as-is for general informational use. For decisions with material consequences (medical, legal, financial, security) verify results against a qualified professional source.

Related SEO Tools

You Might Also Like