# Broken Link Checker (`daddyd-prints/broken-link-checker`) Actor

Crawls a site's pages or sitemap and checks every link for 404s, server errors, redirect loops and dead redirects. Pay per checked link. robots.txt is obeyed; skipped and unreachable links are listed, not charged.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/daddyd-prints/broken-link-checker.md
- **Developed by:** [Derek Derringer](https://apify.com/daddyd-prints) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Broken Link Checker

### What it does

This Actor reads the pages of a website, collects every link on them, and checks each link once. You get one row per link, with its final HTTP status, whether it is broken, its full redirect chain, the page it was found on and its link text. A link counts as broken when it ends in a 4xx or 5xx answer, a redirect loop, too many redirects or a redirect that points nowhere usable.

Give it start URLs, a sitemap, or both. From start URLs it follows links on the same site to more pages, up to **Maximum pages**. From a sitemap it reads the pages the sitemap lists.

It reads each site's robots.txt before anything else and obeys it. It never logs in, never sends a cookie and never tries to get past a CAPTCHA.

### How to use it

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Put the pages to start from in **Start URLs**, or a sitemap address in **Sitemap URL**.
3. Set **Maximum pages** and **Maximum links**, and choose whether to **Check external links**.
4. Click **Start**.
5. When the run ends, open the **Output** tab. The **Links** view shows every checked link; filter on **Broken** to see only the broken ones. Export as CSV, JSON or Excel.

### Input

| Field | What it does | Default | Limits |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Start URLs (`startUrls`) | Pages to start from. Links on the same site are followed to more pages. If a start URL redirects to another host name, such as example.com to www.example.com, that host counts as the same site. | None. Prefilled with one example site | Up to 100. http and https only |
| Sitemap URL (`sitemapUrl`) | A sitemap.xml, sitemap index or text sitemap. Its pages are read. Without start URLs, no other links are followed to new pages. | None | Up to 20 child sitemaps of an index |
| Maximum pages (`maxPages`) | The most pages read to collect links. | 10 | 1 to 1,000 |
| Maximum links (`maxLinks`) | The most unique links checked. | 100 | 1 to 10,000 |
| Check external links (`checkExternalLinks`) | On: links to other sites are checked too. Off: they are counted in REPORT only. | On | |
| Request timeout (`requestTimeoutSecs`) | How long one request may take to answer. | 15 seconds | 3 to 60 seconds |
| Maximum redirects (`maxHops`) | The most redirects followed for one link or page. | 10 | 0 to 20 |

A site is a host name, plus its port when that is not 80 or 443. So http and https addresses of the same host are one site.

### Output

One dataset item per checked link:

| Field | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| `linkUrl` | The link, made absolute, with any #fragment removed |
| `broken` | true or false |
| `finalStatus`, `finalUrl` | The last answer in the chain and its address |
| `hops`, `hopCount`, `loop` | Every answer in the redirect chain, how many were redirects, and whether they loop |
| `stopReason`, `redirectNotFollowed` | Why a chain ended early, and where its last redirect pointed |
| `isExternal` | true when the link points to another site |
| `foundOnPage`, `anchorText` | The first page the link was found on, and its link text |
| `timesFound`, `foundOnPages` | How often the link appears across the pages read, and up to 10 of those pages |
| `responseTimeMs`, `checkedAt` | How long the answers took, and when the last one arrived |

Example row from a local test run:

```json
{"linkUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:18950/deep404", "broken": true, "finalStatus": 404, "finalUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:18950/deep404", "hopCount": 0, "isExternal": false, "foundOnPage": "http://127.0.0.1:18950/page2", "anchorText": "Deep", "timesFound": 1}
```

Only `<a href>` links are collected. mailto:, tel:, javascript: and other non-web links are counted in REPORT and never stored, so no email address or phone number on a page is written anywhere.

### Pricing

This Actor is priced per event, with two charges:

- **Actor start:** Apify's automatic start event, $0.00005 per start (one event per GB of run memory, minimum one).
- **Link checked:** one charge for each link written to the dataset.

**Price per checked link: $1.00 per 1,000 links, which is $0.001 each.**

Reading pages is never charged. These are never charged either: links robots.txt disallows, links that time out or whose site cannot be reached, links that answer 401, 403 or 429, links that lead to a login or CAPTCHA page, links past **Maximum links**, and the REPORT and SKIPPED records.

If you set a maximum cost for the run and it is reached, the Actor checks no more links, lists the rest in SKIPPED as `spending_limit_reached`, and ends the run without an error.

### Records

| Record | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| REPORT | Why the run stopped, the settings used, counts (pages read, unique links found, links checked, broken, unreachable, skipped by reason), every page read and why any page was not read, robots.txt results per site and requests per host |
| SKIPPED | Every link that was not checked or not saved, with the reason and the page it was found on. Links that timed out or whose site could not be reached are marked `unreachable`. Up to 5,000 are listed, then a count of the rest |

### Rules it follows

- robots.txt is read first on every site, including every site a redirect leads to, and obeyed. A robots.txt that answers a server error, 401, 403 or 429 skips that whole site.
- One request at a time to any one site, with the site's Crawl-delay. A Crawl-delay over 30 seconds skips the site.
- Links are checked with HEAD. GET is used only when HEAD is refused, and then the body is not read.
- A page is read only when it answers with HTML, and at most 5 MB of it. PDFs, images and other files are checked as links but never downloaded.
- On Apify, private and local network addresses are refused.
- There is no cookie, header, login, proxy or user agent input. The user agent starts with `broken-link-checker/0.1`.

### Your responsibility

You are responsible for having the right to check the sites you give this Actor and for following their terms of use. The Actor obeys robots.txt for you, but it cannot read or judge a site's terms.

### Limits

| Limit | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Pages per run | 1 to 1,000 |
| Links checked per run | 1 to 10,000 |
| Page size read | 5 MB of HTML per page |
| Sitemaps | 20 MB per sitemap file, 20 child sitemaps per index |
| Memory | 256 MB by default |

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

Pages to start from, one per line, starting with http:// or https://. The Actor reads each page, collects every link on it, and follows links on the same site to more pages, up to Maximum pages. If a start URL redirects to another host name, such as example.com to www.example.com, that host counts as the same site. Give start URLs, a sitemap URL, or both.

## `sitemapUrl` (type: `string`):

Optional. The address of a sitemap.xml, a sitemap index or a plain text sitemap. The pages it lists are read, up to Maximum pages. Without start URLs, only the sitemap's pages are read and no other links are followed to new pages.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

The most pages read to collect links. Reading pages is never charged.

## `maxLinks` (type: `integer`):

The most unique links checked. Each checked link is one result and one charge. Links beyond this number are listed in SKIPPED and not charged. Your spending limit for the run is also respected.

## `checkExternalLinks` (type: `boolean`):

On: links to other sites are checked too. Off: only links on the same site are checked, and external links are counted in REPORT but not checked or charged.

## `requestTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

How long one request may take to answer. A link that does not answer in time is listed in SKIPPED as unreachable and not charged.

## `maxHops` (type: `integer`):

The most redirects followed for one link or page. A link that keeps redirecting after this many is reported as broken with stopReason max_hops_reached.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://crawlee.dev"
  ],
  "maxPages": 10,
  "maxLinks": 100,
  "checkExternalLinks": true,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 15,
  "maxHops": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `report` (type: `string`):

No description

## `skipped` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrls": [
        "https://crawlee.dev"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("daddyd-prints/broken-link-checker").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "startUrls": ["https://crawlee.dev"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("daddyd-prints/broken-link-checker").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://crawlee.dev"
  ]
}' |
apify call daddyd-prints/broken-link-checker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,daddyd-prints/broken-link-checker"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/xrSwh1HwT2Ezskdav/builds/qadXA3IipVZrUuQOP/openapi.json