Broken Link Checker
Enter a URL to scan all links on the page and check each one for 404 errors, redirects, and timeouts. Finds broken internal and external links.
What Are Broken Links?
Broken links (also called dead links) are hyperlinks that point to pages that no longer exist or cannot be reached. When a user or search engine bot follows a broken link, they get a 404 Not Found error or another error response instead of the expected page.
Why Broken Links Hurt SEO
Broken links create several problems for SEO:
- Wasted crawl budget — search engine bots spend time following links that lead nowhere instead of discovering real content.
- Lost link equity — any authority flowing through a broken link is wasted. Internal broken links mean you are not passing PageRank to your own pages.
- Poor user experience — visitors who hit 404 pages are more likely to leave your site, increasing bounce rate.
- Trust signals — a site with many broken links appears poorly maintained, which can affect perceived quality.
How to Fix Broken Links
| Status Code | Meaning | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| 404 | Page not found | Update the link to point to the correct URL, or set up a 301 redirect from the old URL. |
| 410 | Gone permanently | Remove the link or redirect to a relevant alternative page. |
| 500 | Server error | The linked site has a problem. If it is your site, check server logs. If external, consider removing the link. |
| 0 / Timeout | No response | The server did not respond. May be temporarily down or blocking requests. |
| 301/302 | Redirect | Not broken, but update the link to point directly to the final URL to avoid unnecessary redirect hops. |
How RankNibbler Checks Links
RankNibbler first fetches the page and extracts all links. Then it sends a HEAD request to each unique URL (up to 100 links) to check the HTTP status code. Links returning 4xx or 5xx status codes are flagged as broken. Redirects (3xx) are flagged separately so you can update them.
Need a full site scan? Use the Site Audit tool to crawl your entire sitemap.