Find every broken link, dead link, and 404 error on any page in seconds. Our free online broken link checker scans up to 200 links per page — showing exact HTTP status codes, anchor text, and one-click redirect detection.
Extracting links from page…
⏱ Checking each link with a HEAD request. External links may take a few seconds each.
| # | Link URL | Status |
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No links match this filter
Try "All Links" to see every result.
Fix your titles, meta descriptions, and alt text in bulk with SkySEOManager Pro — while you're in clean-up mode, make sure your SEO metadata is optimised too.
A broken link (also called a dead link or dead URL) is any hyperlink on your website that leads to a page that no longer exists — returning a 404 Not Found error or another HTTP error code. They're created whenever a page is deleted, renamed, or moved without setting up a redirect.
From an SEO perspective, broken links cause two serious problems. First, they waste crawl budget — Googlebot follows every link it can find, and every 404 it hits is a wasted crawl. Second, they leak PageRank: any link pointing to a 404 page passes its authority to nothing. Fix the link or set a 301 redirect, and that authority flows where it should.
For users, broken links simply break trust. A visitor who clicks a link and hits a 404 page is far more likely to leave your site immediately — increasing your bounce rate and reducing the conversion signals Google uses to evaluate content quality.
Wasted Crawl Budget
Googlebot has a limited crawl budget per site per day. Every 404 it hits is a wasted crawl that could have been used to index your actual content.
PageRank Leakage
Links pointing to broken pages pass their PageRank to nothing. A simple 301 redirect salvages that authority and passes it to a working page.
Poor User Experience
Users who hit broken links bounce immediately, increasing your exit rate and sending negative engagement signals to search engines.
Lost Link Building Opportunities
Broken external links can be reclaimed using the "broken link building" strategy — find sites linking to broken pages in your niche and offer your content as a replacement.
Our broken link checker shows the exact HTTP status code for every link. Here's what each one means and what you should do about it.
200 OK, 201 Created. The link is working perfectly. No action needed. These are the only codes you want to see for your important links.
The page has moved permanently. Update your link to point directly to the final destination — each redirect hop loses a small amount of link equity.
Temporary redirect. If it's actually permanent, the target site should change it to a 301. For outbound links you control, point directly to the final URL.
The most common broken link error. The page doesn't exist at this URL. Fix by updating the link, setting a 301 redirect, or removing the link entirely.
Like 404 but tells crawlers the page is gone permanently. Google de-indexes 410 pages faster than 404s. Remove or update any links pointing here.
500 Internal Server Error, 503 Service Unavailable. The server is broken or overloaded. Often temporary — check again later. If persistent, contact the site owner.
Once you've run our free dead link checker and exported your report, here's exactly how to fix each category of broken link you find.
Fix internal 404s first
Internal broken links are the highest priority. Either update the link to the correct URL, set up a 301 redirect from the old URL, or restore the deleted page. Use Redirection (free WordPress plugin) to manage 301 redirects easily.
Update broken external links
For outbound links to external sites returning 404, search for the page's new URL (try Wayback Machine at web.archive.org) and update your link. If no replacement exists, remove the link entirely.
Collapse redirect chains
Each redirect hop (301 → 302 → 200) loses a tiny amount of link equity. Update your links to skip straight to the final destination URL whenever possible.
Run monthly to stay clean
External websites go offline constantly. Schedule a monthly broken link check using this free tool — or use our SkySEOManager Pro to monitor your WordPress site's internal links automatically.
One of the most effective free link building strategies is broken link building. Here's how it works using our free link checker:
Find relevant broken pages
Run our tool on authority sites in your niche. Identify their broken external links that point to content similar to yours.
Create replacement content
If you don't have a page that replaces the dead link, create one. Make it better than the original using the Wayback Machine to see what used to be there.
Reach out to the webmaster
Contact the site owner, mention the broken link, and suggest your content as a replacement. This outreach converts at 5–15% — significantly better than cold link requests.
Earn high-quality backlinks
The webmaster fixes their broken link by pointing to your content — you get a relevant, editorial backlink on an authoritative page in your niche.
Cleaning up broken links is just one part of a full SEO audit. While you're fixing dead links, use SkySEOManager Pro to simultaneously fix missing meta descriptions, unoptimised titles, and image alt text — across your entire WordPress site in one session.
★★★★★"Found 23 broken links with the free checker, then used SkySEOManager Pro to fix all our meta descriptions at the same time. Our organic traffic grew 41% in 3 months."
Paste any URL above and get a full broken link report in under 60 seconds. No sign-up, no limits on how many pages you scan.
