Link Checker Tool
Comprehensively check website links, identify broken links and redirect issues, improve user experience and SEO performance.
Choose how to inspect your links
Run a full site audit for crawl-wide coverage, or use the Chrome extension to inspect the page open in your browser.
This page explains the link-checking workflow. Scans run through the Fennec audit surfaces linked above; the URL field previously shown here was not a live scanner.
Core Features
Comprehensive Link Check
Check all internal links, external links, and image links, ensuring nothing is missed
Broken Link Detection
Quickly identify 404 errors, server errors, and other broken link issues
Redirect Analysis
Analyze all redirect chains, identify unnecessary redirects and loops
Bulk Scanning
Scan entire website at once, generate complete link health report
What a useful link audit should inspect
A status-code list is only the first layer. The audit should preserve the source page, destination, anchor or image context, follow attributes, redirect target, and the final canonical URL so every finding can be repaired.
Internal links
Check navigation, breadcrumbs, article links, canonicals, hreflang targets, pagination, image sources, and links generated by shared templates. Internal links should normally point directly to the final canonical URL.
External links
Record failures and redirects, but review them before removal. Some sites block automated requests, require authentication, or return different responses by region, so one failed check is not always proof that users see a broken page.
Media and downloadable files
Images, PDFs, feeds, scripts, and stylesheets can fail independently of the HTML page. Preserve the resource type and source element so a developer can find the exact template or content record.
Redirect and canonical consistency
Flag loops, multi-hop chains, HTTP-to-HTTPS detours, language-path mistakes, tracking parameters, and cases where a link redirects to a page whose canonical points somewhere else.
How to interpret link-check results
Treat each result as a diagnosis cue, not an automatic instruction to delete a link. Re-test important failures from a browser and check the final destination before changing production content.
| Result | What to do |
|---|---|
| 2xx | The destination responded successfully. Confirm that it is the intended canonical page, not merely any working page. |
| 3xx | The link redirects. Update internal links to the final URL when the move is permanent and investigate chains or loops. |
| 4xx | The requested resource is unavailable or access is restricted. Check the URL, permissions, and whether the content was removed. |
| 5xx | The destination server failed to complete the request. Re-test to separate a temporary outage from a persistent server problem. |
| Timeout / DNS | No usable HTTP response was received. Verify DNS, TLS, firewall rules, and whether the destination blocks automated requests. |
A repair workflow that avoids new SEO problems
- 1
Confirm the failure
Re-run the request, open the destination manually, and check whether authentication, geography, robots rules, or bot protection changed the response.
- 2
Find every source
Locate all pages, navigation components, templates, structured-data fields, and sitemap entries that produce the link.
- 3
Choose the correct remedy
Update the link when a replacement exists; restore the resource when it was removed by mistake; or remove the reference when there is no useful destination.
- 4
Use redirects selectively
Add a permanent redirect only when the old and new resources are genuine equivalents. Do not send unrelated removed URLs to the home page.
- 5
Re-crawl and record
Verify the final response and canonical, then save the crawl date and affected template so the issue can be checked after the next release.
How It Works
Enter URL
Enter the website URL you want to check or upload sitemap file
Start Scan
The tool will automatically crawl and check all links
View Report
Get detailed link health report and fix recommendations
FAQ
What is a broken link?
A broken link is a link pointing to a non-existent or inaccessible page. Common broken links include 404 error pages, server errors (500 series), DNS resolution failures, etc. Broken links reduce user experience and affect search engine evaluation of the website.
How do broken links affect SEO?
Broken links interrupt navigation for users and crawlers, and internal links can no longer pass visitors or link value to the intended destination. A single broken link is not an automatic ranking penalty, but widespread failures can make important pages harder to discover and use.
How to fix broken link issues?
Update the link when the destination moved, restore the missing page when it should still exist, remove links that no longer serve a purpose, or add a permanent redirect only when there is a genuinely equivalent replacement. Recheck the final URL and any redirect chain after the repair.
Should every redirect be removed?
No. A single intentional redirect is often correct after a page move. Prioritize redirect loops, long chains, links that still point to old URLs, and redirects that lead to an unrelated destination.
Can a link checker see JavaScript-generated links?
It depends on whether the checker renders JavaScript. Compare raw HTML with the rendered page when links are inserted by client-side code, and test authenticated or interactive flows separately.
How often should links be checked?
Run a focused check after migrations, URL changes, template releases, or large content imports. For a stable site, schedule a recurring crawl based on publishing frequency and the cost of a broken conversion path.
Ready to fix broken links?
Run a Fennec SEO audit to inspect links, redirects, status codes, and technical issues on the pages that matter.
Run a Fennec SEO audit