Tools and Guidelines for Checking Broken Links on Websites

In the process of building and designing a website, one of the important steps to take is to check for broken links.

A broken link is a link on a web page that leads to a page that doesn't exist. In general, broken links will report a 404 not found error in the browser. If your site has an excessive number of broken links, then search engines will consider your website less worthy to be displayed in the top position.

Well, to help you identify and solve broken link problems, we've put together a free tool to check for broken links on your site.

The first broken link checker that we recommend is the Online Broken Link Checker. When you visit the site, you will immediately be presented with a column to enter the address of the website you want to check for the presence of a broken link. 

This Broken link checker has several very useful key features:

This tool is a plugin that can be used for WordPress-based websites. This Broken Link Checker plugin is useful for monitoring and checking all links, both internal and external.

The plugin has an interface that is very intuitive, so you can quickly understand the usefulness of each menu. Apart from that, you can also change the broken links directly from the plugin page, without the need to manually change each link.

You can also find a link using the URL and anchor text, so you can be more efficient in monitoring and repair the damage that occurs due to a typing error in the link or link dead.

This tool is a tool that can help you track all the links, issues, optimizations, and pages on a website. Apart from being a broken link checker, ScreamingFrog is a very full-featured website audit tool.

Of course, this tool is also very effective for checking broken links on your website or blog. But you can also use ScreamingFrog for a variety of other purposes, such as optimizing your content and website for search engines.

You can use this tool for free, to check up to 500 URLs, while the paid version has no limit on the number of URLs to check.

This tool can help you to check for broken links in a particular section of your site. You can also set how deep the tool will look for broken links on your website.

This W3C Link Checker is very useful for auditing websites with a large number of 404 errors. This tool is quite popular among SEO practitioners and website auditors. 

Google Search Console is one of the best free tools that you can use to check for broken links on your website. Of course, you have to integrate Google Search Console into your site first.

The Coverage feature in Google Search Console can help you identify problems with links in real time. In addition, you will also be notified via email whenever an error occurs on your website. 

Unfortunately, Google Search Console can only identify broken links on your website. This means that if there is a broken link in your article or page that points to another site, you cannot identify it with this tool. 

SEMrush is a complete software that can help you check for broken links and a myriad of other Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features.

This tool is one of the right investments if you not only want to monitor the links on your site, but also improve your site's performance in search engines. Apart from that, you will also get a better understanding of the functionality of your site and the myriad of other digital marketing features.

To access the broken link search feature, you can run an SEO audit. In addition to the error list (including 404), you will also get some other data such as redirects, speed issues, content duplication, site performance, and much more.

This tool is specially designed for SEO and marketing strategy analysis using accurate data. Ahrefs is one of the most popular tools among SEO practitioners and website owners around the world.

Ahrefs helps you check for broken links by providing a special report via the broken backlinks menu. You can check internal or external links, so there is no gap for a 404 to occur in your website.

With a myriad of SEO and other digital marketing features, Ahrefs charges a premium starting at US$99 per month.

Checking for broken links is one of the important aspects in determining the performance of your site in search engines. The tools in this article can help you make sure all the links on your site are accessible.