# Broken Link Checker

https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-broken-links

## Short answer

Scan your page to find broken internal and external links.

## What It Does

Checks the links on one page — internal and outbound, up to 100 unique URLs — and requests each one to confirm it still works. Flags links that return an error status such as 404 or 500, or that time out, and follows redirects to the final destination. Returns each broken link with its anchor text and status code.

## How It Works

1. Enter your page URL and click Check Links
2. We extract every `<a href>` on the page (internal and outbound)
3. Request each unique link, following redirects, with a 5-second timeout
4. Return every broken link with its status code and anchor text

## Sample input + output

INPUT

```text
url: https://rankproof.eu (depth: 1)
```

OUTPUT

```text
links scanned: 247
  internal: 184  → 0 broken           OK
  external: 63   → 2 broken          FAIL

broken external links:
  ✗ /api/v1 → https://old-host.example  (DNS)
  ✗ /blog → https://example.org/x         (404)

redirects (3xx): 7 (all single-hop)   OK
```

## Why It Matters

Broken links frustrate visitors and lead crawlers to dead ends. Google says 404s on their own do not hurt a site's ranking, but a link to a dead page still loses the visitor you meant to send and hides the page you meant to link. A quick check after content changes keeps them from piling up.

## Who Uses This

- **Content Manager**: Run it after an editorial cleanup to catch links broken by deleted pages or expired outbound resources.
- **SEO Auditor**: Include a link check in client onboarding — broken links are a quick, visible fix.
- **Migration Lead**: After a domain or URL-structure change, confirm every internal link on key pages still resolves.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Does it follow redirects?

Yes — we follow redirects and report the status of the final destination. To trace each hop, use the Redirect Checker.

### Can I check the whole site?

This tool checks the links on one page at a time. Run it again for each page you want to check.

### Do broken links hurt rankings?

Not directly — Google says 404s by themselves do not harm a site's ranking. Broken internal links still hide pages from crawlers and visitors, and broken outbound links make a page less useful, so fix them.

### What is a "soft 404"?

A page that returns HTTP 200 but shows a "not found" message. This tool checks status codes only, so it does not catch them.

### Does it check images and other resources?

No — only `<a href>` links. Images, scripts and stylesheets are not requested.

## Related Tools in SEO Analysis

- [Title & Meta Description Checker](https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-meta-title)
- [Heading Tag Checker](https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-heading-tags)
- [Image Alt Text Checker](https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-image-alt)
- [Canonical URL Checker](https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-canonical-url)
- [Robots.txt Analyzer](https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-robots-txt)
- [robots.txt Generator](https://rankproof.eu/tools/seo-robots-txt-generator)