Free broken link checker tool /websites for SEO and bloggers
Frequents updates to blog as well as multiple edits may end up in mistakes and the most that suffers is links which can be internal links or external links. Generally most of the sites will have broken links or dead links just like a software bug and this cannot be completely fixed in a day. You have to check frequently for broken links. Have you recently checked your blog or website for any broken links? If not, then you need to find all the broken links in you website and fix it as soon as possible. Here we will see some list of free broken link checker tool and websites.
Related: Benefits of internal linking in SEO
Why to find and fix broken links?
Broken links or dead links are normal hyperlinks that points to external websites or within your site which is permanently unavailable. Broken links may occurs, if the webmaster is deleting the page or changing the permalink that you are linking to or if the site is dead. Broken links simply gives a 404 status code which your site visitors don’t like.
Related: Do follow link VS No follow links
Broken links not only frustrates your users, but you are making the job of search bots difficult which results in bad ranking. Broken links are dead ends for search engine bots and so find and fix it. All these software finds broken links on both internal links as well as external links. This would be useful if you are running a blog, since most your old posts with link in it will have broken links. So find all the broken links and link it to deeper, most relevant pages using proper anchor links.
Note: All these broken link checker tools works just like search engine spider. So links that you are blocking it in robots.txt cannot be crawled. All those links you have to check it manually.
Free broken link checker tool /websites for SEO and Bloggers
Before listing the other free broken link checker tool and websites we strongly recommend you to use Google webmaster tools. In Google webmaster tools you can get the complete report on how your site is performing on search engine. There is a section called crawl where you can see crawl errors, sitemap errors and 404 errors that is broken links. Here is the tutorial on how to use Google webmaster tools effectively for SEO.
Screaming frog SEO spider Tool
It is definitely the best free broken link checker tool from Screaming frog. This broken link checker is not an online tool; it is free downloadable software for windows, Mac and Ubuntu. From SEO perspective it crawls and analyzes all the links, images, scripts and CSS. Also it finds the broken links fast and it displays clearly in a table. Other than finding broken links it also finds server errors, redirects, duplicate pages, canonical link elements and more.
Download Screaming frog SEO spider Tool
Broken link Checker
Broken link checker is a free to use online tool. It analyzes all the broken links from internal links as well as external links. Just enter your home page URL and it will analyze all the links. Once done, it provides you with a clear result that makes you easy to find out the broken links.
Visit broken link checker
Online Broken link checker
This is another best free to use online broken link checker tool. This tool checks your blogs and websites for any dead links. It validates both internal links as well as external links also it can scan unlimited webpages. It scans and reports the broken links, 404 error codes and all bad URLs.
Visit online broken link checker
Xenu Link Sleuth
Xenu Link Sleuth is free downloadable software for windows that can used to analyze broken links on large websites. It is a simple tool designed specifically to detect broken links. It checks for broken links, HTTP status, file type as well as page title and description.
Additional features: It supports SSL (“https://”)websites, detects and reports URLs that are redirected, Can recheck broken links and can be emailed.
Download Xenu link Sleuth
W3C link checker
W3C link validator tool has more options to find broken links and it works similar to search bots. You have to manually check links that you are blocking in robots.txt. When checking you can show summary only, check linked documents and hide redirects. Just enter your site URL and it will clearly list out the link status, issues and broken links.
Visit W3C link validator
Site Liner
Site Liner is a free to use online tool that checks duplicate content within your site, XML sitemap, broken links and more. It is a very useful tool to scan your website also it provides you with page score and more without the need of registration. Site Liner is a service from Copyscape, one of the best online plagiarism checker tool.
Visit Site Liner
Also read: Copyscape alternatives – online plagiarism checker tool
Dead Link Checker
Dead link checker is a free online tool to check your broken links. This tool is simple and easy to find broken links in your site just enter the URL and check the number of broken links in you blog.
Visit Dead Link Checker
Link Tiger
This is a free tool to check broken links, but you need to register before checking broken links. One of the best things about this online tool is that it sends an email alert regarding broken links.
Visit Link Tiger
Broken links are really bad for your site and it leaves a bad image to your site visitor moreover search engines hates them. So for the purpose of SEO and to engage with your site visitors always link to the unique, relevant and active pages.
Hope this list of free broken link checker tools help you to find the broken links and dead links. Are you using any other methods to find out broken links in your site, then please let us know by comments.