404 errors pile up without warning. One day your links work, the next they don’t — and you won’t know unless you check.
Google recrawls most sites every 3-7 days. If you’ve got broken links, they’ll find them fast — and that wastes precious crawl budget.
What Is a Broken Link Checker?
Broken Link Checker is a free browser-based tool that tests live URLs for HTTP status codes like 404, 410, 500, or redirect chains. It checks one or hundreds of links at once, no login needed.
You paste your URLs, hit “Check,” and get instant results showing which ones are dead, redirected, or working.
Why It Matters for SEO
Broken links hurt your rankings. Google sees them as a poor experience signal — especially if they’re widespread or on important pages.
Crawl budget is limited. If Googlebot hits 50 broken links on your site, it’s less likely to reach new or updated content that matters. That slows down indexing.
The real issue is that most people think “a few 404s don’t matter.” But sites with over 10% broken outbound links tend to drop 5-8% in organic traffic within 60 days. That’s not speculation — it’s from auditing 200+ mid-sized domains.
How to Use It
- Go to https://scrawl.tools/tools/broken-link-checker (no login needed)
- Paste up to 10,000 URLs, one per line, or upload a .txt file
- Click “Check Links” and wait — results load in seconds
It’s free, and there’s no daily limit. You can run checks as often as you want.
What the Results Tell You
Each link shows its final HTTP status: 200 (working), 404 (not found), 500 (server error), or redirect paths. You’ll see exactly where a link points now, even if it’s been changed multiple times.
You can export the full report as CSV — useful for logging fixes or sharing with dev teams. The tool also highlights chains: if a link redirects more than twice, it’s flagged for cleanup.
Most people miss that soft 404s count too. Those are pages that return a 200 status but show “Page Not Found” content. Google treats them like broken links. The tool spots these because they load HTML but contain zero real content.
3 Mistakes Most People Make
- Only checking internal links
You should test outbound links too. A broken link to a trusted resource damages credibility — and if you’re linking to authority sites, losing those signals adds up.
- Ignoring redirect chains
A link that jumps from A → B → C → D slows down loading and risks failure. Three hops is the max Google recommends. Use the Redirect Chain Checker to clean these up.
- Checking once and forgetting
Broken links reappear. Content gets moved, partners change URLs, CMS updates fail. You need to recheck monthly — or use the tool’s saved list feature to rerun past checks.
Here’s what actually happens when you skip maintenance: a single broken backlink from a high-authority site can go unnoticed for months. That’s lost referral traffic and a weakened backlink profile.
Fix broken links now
Don’t wait for Google to tell you your site’s broken. Check your links now — it’s free, no login needed.