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Broken Link Checker

This broken link checker fetches a page you give it, finds every link on it, internal and external, and checks each one live so you can see which return an error, which redirect, and which are healthy, with the status code for each.

Note

We fetch the page server-side, extract every link on it (internal and external, up to 40), and check each one live with redirects left unfollowed so its own status code is reported rather than wherever it eventually lands. A 429 response is flagged separately from a broken link: it means the server wants us to slow down, not that the page is dead.

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What this broken link checker shows you

Paste a URL and the page is fetched server-side. Every link on it is extracted, internal and external alike, deduplicated, and checked live, up to 40 per page. Each one comes back as OK (a 2xx response), a redirect (3xx, reported with its target rather than followed further), broken (4xx or 5xx), or unreachable, with the status code shown for every link that returned one.

Why a 429 is reported separately, not as broken

HTTP 429 means the server is asking whoever is asking to slow down. It says nothing about whether the page itself works, and treating it as a dead link is a real mistake we have made and fixed in our own product: measured on our own site (5 Sept 2026), a crawl that ran into the host's own rate limit had six healthy pages misreported as broken, an exact match between the rate-limited requests and the false positives. This checker flags 429 as its own outcome rather than folding it into "broken", and suggests trying again in a minute.

Redirects are not broken links, but they are not free either

A link returning a 3xx is not dead, the page it points to still exists, but every redirect it survives costs a moment of latency and, on an internal link, is usually one edit away from pointing straight at the real destination. This tool reports the redirect and its target without chasing the rest of the chain; if you already know a specific URL redirects and want every hop with its own status code, our redirect checker does that.

Redirect Checker

One page here, including outbound links; your whole site there, internal only

Checking the page you already suspect is useful, but the links that quietly rot are usually the ones nobody rechecks: an outbound citation to a page that moved, an old internal link nobody noticed after a restructure. This tool checks both directions on one page. Crawl Cove's whole-site broken link check goes further on the internal side, crawling every page and matching every internal link against what it actually found, with no cap once Max pages is raised, but it does not fetch external sites at all, so a citation link going stale elsewhere on your site stays invisible to it.

Broken link checker (whole-site) · Full site audit

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a broken link?
A link that returns a 4xx or 5xx status code (404 Not Found and 410 Gone are the most common), or one that could not be reached at all. A redirect (3xx) is reported separately, since the destination still exists.
Is this broken link checker free?
Yes. It is completely free and needs no sign-up. Enter a URL and every link on that page is checked server-side.
Does this check external links too?
Yes, both internal and external links on the page you enter are checked. That is different from Crawl Cove's own whole-site broken link check, which only checks internal links as it crawls your site and does not fetch external ones at all.
How many links does it check?
Up to 40 links per page, in the order they appear. A page with more than that is checked up to the cap, and the result says so.
Does this check my whole site?
No, this checks the links on one page you enter at a time. Crawl Cove crawls a whole site and matches every internal link against the pages it actually found there, with no link-count cap once Max pages is raised from its shipped default of 500.
Why does this run on your server instead of my browser?
A browser cannot reliably fetch pages on other domains itself (that is what CORS exists to prevent), and even where it can, it cannot read a clean status code the way a direct server-side request can. Checking server-side is the only way to get a real status for every link in one pass.
What does a 429 result mean?
The server is asking us to slow down, which is not the same as the link being broken. The page behind it is very often fine a moment later. This checker reports 429 as its own outcome rather than counting it as broken.
What is the difference between this and the Redirect Checker?
This checks whether every link on a page works at all, in one pass. The Redirect Checker follows one URL you already suspect redirects, through every hop of its chain, with each hop's own status code. Use this one to scan a page; use that one once you have found a specific redirecting link and want the full path.
Can I check a page I do not own?
Yes, the same as any browser could reach the URL directly. It is a read-only check: one request per link, nothing is submitted to any target, and results are not stored anywhere you or anyone else can browse back to.
Can I export the results?
Yes. A "Download CSV" button appears once a check completes, listing every link's URL, verdict, status code, whether it is internal or external, and any note.

From one page to your whole site

This checks one page, including the links pointing off it. Crawl Cove's own broken link check goes the other way: it crawls your whole site and matches every internal link against the pages it actually found there, with no link-count cap once Max pages is raised, but it does not fetch the external sites you link out to. Use this free tool for outbound links, or for a quick check of one page. See check broken links across your whole site or compare the plans.

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