Internal Link Checker

What This Checks

Enter a URL and the checker extracts every link on that page, requests each one, and reports the status it got back. Internal and external links are separated, because they are different problems with different owners: a broken internal link is yours to fix, a broken external link is a decision about whether to keep citing a source that moved.

Links are also reported with their anchor text and their rel attributes, which is how you find the two silent problems: a link marked nofollow by a plugin default that you never intended, and forty links across a site whose anchor text is the word "here".

Reading the Output

STATUS  TYPE      ANCHOR TEXT           TARGET
200     internal  pricing plans         /pricing/
301     internal  our guide             /blog/old-guide
                                        -> /blog/guide/
404     internal  case study            /case-studies/acme
200     external  Search Central docs   developers.google.com/...
403     external  industry report       example.org/report.pdf
200     internal  here                  /contact/

24 links checked
  1 broken internal
  1 internal redirect
  1 external blocked
  4 links with non-descriptive anchor text

The 404 is the urgent one. A broken internal link is a dead end for a reader and a wasted crawl request, and unlike an external break it is entirely within your control. The 301 is not urgent but is worth fixing at the source: linking to the destination directly saves a hop every time the link is followed.

The 403 on the external PDF usually means the server blocks automated requests rather than that the file is gone. Open it in a browser before removing the citation.

Anchor Text Is the Overlooked Half

Four links whose anchor text is "here" or "read more" is normal and it is a small, cumulative loss. Anchor text is the strongest signal you send about what the destination page is about, and it is also what a screen reader user hears when they pull up a list of links on the page. A list that reads "here, here, read more, click this" is unusable.

Descriptive anchor text costs nothing to write and fixes both problems at once. It is the single highest-return internal linking change available to most sites.

One Page Is a Sample, Not a Picture

This tool checks one page at a time, which is enough to prove a problem exists and not enough to find all of it. Broken links cluster: a directory that moved, a plugin that changed its URL structure, a bulk slug edit that nobody redirected. Finding one usually means there are twenty.

Checking a whole site means crawling it, which is what Site Audit does. That one costs credits and this one does not, which is the honest trade: use this to confirm you have a problem, then crawl the site once you know it is worth doing.

Questions