Suparank

Free Broken Link Checker

Find dead links on any website instantly. Check up to 100 links per scan, see HTTP status codes, and get a detailed report of all 404 errors hurting your SEO.

1

Enter URL

Paste the page URL you want to check

2

Scan Links

We extract and check up to 100 links via HTTP requests

3

Fix Issues

Get a detailed report of all broken links to fix

Why Broken Links Hurt Your SEO and User Experience

Broken links (also called dead links or 404 errors) are hyperlinks that point to non-existent pages. As of 2026, studies show that 23% of web pages contain at least one broken link, and these seemingly small issues can have significant negative impacts on your search rankings and user satisfaction.

When Googlebot encounters broken links on your site, it wastes valuable crawl budget — the limited number of pages Google will crawl on your site per visit. Every 404 error is a missed opportunity for Google to index your valid content. For large sites, excessive broken links can mean important pages never get crawled or indexed.

The True Cost of Broken Links

1. Wasted Crawl Budget

Search engines allocate a specific crawl budget to each website based on its authority and update frequency. When crawlers hit broken links, they waste this budget on errors instead of discovering your valuable content. Sites with many broken links see 15-25% fewer pages indexed by Google.

2. Poor User Experience Signals

When users click a broken link, they encounter a 404 error page instead of the expected content. This creates frustration, increases bounce rates by 40% on average, and reduces time on site. Google measures these user behavior signals and may lower rankings for sites providing poor experiences.

3. Lost Link Equity

Internal links pass "link equity" (ranking power) between pages on your site. When internal links are broken, this equity flows into a void, never reaching its destination. This can significantly reduce the ranking potential of important pages that would otherwise benefit from internal linking.

4. Negative Brand Perception

Broken links signal neglect and poor site maintenance to visitors. Research shows that 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. For B2B sites, broken links can damage credibility and reduce conversion rates by up to 20%.

Common Causes of Broken Links

  • Deleted or moved pages: Content removed without setting up redirects
  • URL structure changes: Site migrations or permalink updates breaking old links
  • External site changes: Other websites restructuring or removing content you link to
  • Typos in URLs: Manual link creation leading to incorrect addresses
  • Domain expiration: Sites you link to going offline or changing hands
  • Protocol changes: http:// links not redirecting to https:// versions

How to Fix Broken Links

Once our tool identifies broken links, here's how to fix them:

  1. Update the URL: If the page moved, find the new URL and update your link
  2. Set up 301 redirects: For deleted content, redirect to the most relevant existing page
  3. Remove the link: If no suitable replacement exists, delete the link entirely
  4. Replace with alternative: Find similar content on another site and update the reference
  5. Create new content: For important missing pages, create replacement content

Related SEO Tools

Use these tools alongside our broken link checker for complete site health:

Frequently Asked Questions

Our broken link checker fetches your webpage, extracts all links (href attributes), and checks each one by making HTTP HEAD requests. We check up to 100 links per page to ensure fast results. Any link returning a 4xx or 5xx status code, or that times out, is flagged as broken. The entire process happens server-side, keeping your data secure.
Broken links (404 errors) harm your SEO in multiple ways. They waste your site's crawl budget — when Googlebot follows broken links, that's crawling capacity not spent on valid pages. They create poor user experience, increasing bounce rates. They signal poor site maintenance to search engines. And they prevent link equity from flowing through your site. Studies show sites with many broken links rank 5-15% lower on average.
Yes, completely free with no limits on how many pages you can check. No signup, no credit card required. We check up to 100 links per page scan, which covers most blog posts and standard web pages. For larger pages, run multiple scans on different sections.
Our tool checks all external links (pointing to other websites) and internal links (pointing to pages on your own site). It validates HTTP and HTTPS URLs. We skip javascript: links, mailto: links, tel: links, and anchor links (#section) as these don't represent traditional web resources that can return HTTP status codes.
For most websites, monthly checks are sufficient. However, check more frequently if: you have a large site with many outbound links, you run an e-commerce site with product pages that frequently change, you link to news sites or blogs (content changes often), or you've recently migrated or restructured your site. We recommend checking your most important pages (homepage, top landing pages) weekly.
Yes, you can analyze any publicly accessible webpage. This is useful for competitive research — finding broken links on competitor sites can reveal content opportunities (create content to replace their broken resources) or broken link building prospects (suggest your content as a replacement for their broken outbound links).