How to use the Broken Link Checker
What it does
The Broken Link Checker crawls the links on a page and tests each destination to see whether it still works. It flags any link that returns an error such as 404 Not Found or a server error, so you can repair broken internal navigation and remove dead outbound references that frustrate visitors and waste crawl budget.
How to use it
- Open Broken Link Checker under Tools.
- Enter the page URL you want to test.
- Click Check for Broken Links.
- Wait while each link is followed and verified.
- Review the list of links that failed.
Reading the results
The report lists only the broken links, each with its status code and anchor text so you can locate it in your content. 4xx codes mean the target page is gone or the URL is mistyped, while 5xx codes point to a server problem on the destination. For internal broken links, update the URL or set up a redirect. For broken external links, replace them with a working source or remove them. Re-run the check after editing to confirm every link resolves.
Credits
The Broken Link Checker is free and costs 0 credits. Tip: schedule a periodic check on high-traffic pages, since external sites you link to can go offline at any time.
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