Broken Link Checker — Crawl a Whole Website for Dead 404 Links (No API Key) 🔗

Find every broken link on a website automatically. This broken link checker crawls an entire site, follows internal links across the whole domain, and validates every internal and external link for 404, 410 and 5xx errors, plus timeouts, DNS failures and unreachable hosts. For each link you get the source page it was found on, the anchor text, the link type (internal/external) and the exact HTTP status code — so you know precisely where each dead link lives and can fix it fast. Give it one URL and it discovers and audits thousands of pages and links for you. No login, no proxy setup, no headless browser — pure HTTP, fast, cheap and schedulable.

🏆 Why this Broken Link Checker?

8 data fields per link · thousands of pages per run · fast pure-HTTP crawl (HEAD + GET fallback) · no API key, no browser, no login · export to JSON, CSV, Excel or API

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✨ What this Actor does / Key features

• 🕷️ Full-site crawl — start from one URL and automatically follow internal <a> links across the entire domain, discovering pages you forgot existed.
• 🔗 Checks every link — validates internal and external (outbound) links, not just a flat list you paste in.
• 🚦 Exact HTTP status — reports 200, 301, 404, 410, 500 and more, plus network errors (timeouts, unreachable hosts, DNS failures) that have no status code.
• 📄 Source page + anchor text — every row tells you the exact page the broken link sits on and its clickable text, so fixes take seconds.
• ⚡ Fast & cheap — pure HTTP with a lightweight HEAD request (auto-falling back to GET), no headless browser. Each unique URL is checked only once and cached across pages.
• 🎛️ Flexible output — export only broken links for a clean fix-list, or a full audit of every link on the site for a complete inventory.
• 🗓️ Schedulable monitoring — run it daily or weekly and catch dead links the moment they appear.
• 🌐 Works on any site — blogs, docs, e-commerce, marketing sites, knowledge bases — anything reachable over HTTP.

🚀 Quick start (3 steps)

1. Configure — paste one or more website URLs into Start URLs. Optionally set Max pages to crawl (0 = whole site) and toggle Check external links / Only output broken links.
2. Run — click Save & Start. The crawler follows internal links and checks every link it finds.
3. Get your data — download results as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, pull them via the REST API, or schedule the run to repeat.

📥 Input

The only required field is Start URLs — one or more websites to crawl. Everything else has sensible defaults.

Example — audit one whole website

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://example.com" }],
  "maxPagesToCrawl": 0,
  "checkExternalLinks": true,
  "onlyBroken": false,
  "maxConcurrency": 10
}

Example — fast broken-links-only fix list

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://example.com/blog" }],
  "maxPagesToCrawl": 500,
  "checkExternalLinks": false,
  "onlyBroken": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 10
}

Example — monitor several sites at once

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://example.com" },
    { "url": "https://docs.example.com" },
    { "url": "https://shop.example.com" }
  ],
  "maxPagesToCrawl": 2000,
  "checkExternalLinks": true,
  "onlyBroken": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 5
}

Field	Type	Description
startUrls	array	Required. Websites to crawl. The crawler follows internal links from each start URL and checks every link it finds along the way.
maxPagesToCrawl	integer	Maximum pages to crawl per run. More pages = more links checked. Set 0 for no limit (crawl the whole site). Default 5.
checkExternalLinks	boolean	Also verify links that point to other domains, not just internal links. Default false.
onlyBroken	boolean	Save only broken links (4xx / 5xx / unreachable). Turn off to export a full audit row for every link checked. Default false.
maxConcurrency	integer	Number of parallel requests. Lower this if the target site rate-limits you (429). Default 10.

💡 Tip: Set maxPagesToCrawl to 0 for complete site-wide coverage, and turn on Only output broken links to get a clean dead-link list ready to import into a spreadsheet. Drop maxConcurrency to 3–5 for fragile or rate-limited servers.

📤 Output

Each row is one link checked, with the source page, target URL, anchor text, link type, HTTP status and a clear broken/OK flag. Here is a trimmed sample:

{
  "sourceUrl": "https://example.com/blog/post-1",
  "linkUrl": "https://example.com/old-page",
  "anchorText": "see our old guide",
  "linkType": "internal",
  "statusCode": 404,
  "ok": false,
  "error": null,
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-06T14:08:46.306Z"
}

Turn on Only output broken links for a clean list of just the dead links, or leave it off to export a complete link audit of the entire website. Two built-in dataset views — All links and Broken links only — let you preview either result set in the Apify UI.

💡 Use cases

• 🔍 SEO audits — broken internal links waste crawl budget and hurt rankings. Find and fix them across the whole site before Google penalizes you.
• 🚚 Website migrations & redesigns — catch every 404 before and after a launch, domain move or CMS switch, so nothing silently breaks.
• 📚 Content & docs maintenance — keep large blogs, documentation and knowledge bases link-clean as they grow.
• 💸 Affiliate & outbound link monitoring — make sure the external links you earn commissions from still resolve and aren't dead.
• 🗓️ Ongoing link monitoring — schedule the actor daily/weekly and get a fresh broken-link report the moment something breaks.
• 🤝 Agency client reporting — deliver a clean, exportable dead-link audit to clients as a repeatable, white-labelable deliverable.

👥 Who uses it

SEO specialists & technical SEO auditors · web developers & QA engineers · digital agencies & freelancers · content teams & documentation maintainers · affiliate marketers & bloggers · e-commerce managers · site reliability & DevOps teams · migration consultants · growth marketers · anyone maintaining a large website who needs a fast, site-wide dead link finder without wrestling with browser-based crawlers.

💰 Pricing

This actor runs on a simple pay-per-result model — you're billed for the links it checks and returns, with no monthly subscription and no API keys to manage. Small spot-checks cost pennies; full site-wide audits scale with how many pages and links you crawl. See the Pricing tab on this page for the current rate.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a broken link? Any link returning a 4xx or 5xx status code (e.g. 404, 410, 500), or one that can't be reached at all (timeout, DNS failure, connection refused). These rows have ok: false.

Is it legal to check a website for broken links? Yes. The actor only requests publicly available pages and links exactly as a browser or search-engine crawler would, reading HTTP status codes. It does not log in, bypass paywalls or collect private data. Always respect a site's Terms of Service and use reasonable concurrency.

Does a website need a public API for this to work? No. There's no API involved — the checker reads normal public HTML pages over HTTP and follows the <a> links it finds, so it works on virtually any website.

Can I use this without an API key or login? Absolutely. No API key, no account credentials, no headless browser and no proxy setup are required. Paste a URL and run.

How do I export broken links to CSV or JSON? Run the crawl, then download the results in one click as CSV, JSON, Excel or HTML — or pull them via the REST API. Turn on Only output broken links for a clean dead-link list ready to import into a spreadsheet.

How much data can I get? As much as you like. The crawler follows internal links up to maxPagesToCrawl (set it to 0 for no limit) and can audit thousands of pages and links in a single run, checking each unique URL only once for efficiency.

Is there a broken link checker that crawls a whole website without a browser? Yes — this actor is a site-wide dead link finder that uses pure HTTP (no headless browser, no login, no proxy), so it crawls thousands of pages and audits every internal and external link fast and cheaply.

Can I find all 404 pages on a site and export the audit? Yes. It discovers pages by following internal links and reports the exact HTTP status for each one, giving you a complete 404 finder report with the source page and anchor text, ready to export.

Does it crawl other websites too? It checks the status of external links but only crawls deeper within your own domain, so you always stay in control of scope. Toggle Check external links off to skip outbound checks entirely.

Will it find every page on my site? It follows internal links up to maxPagesToCrawl. Increase that limit — or set it to 0 — for complete coverage.

Can I check several sites at once? Yes — just add multiple Start URLs.

🔗 Related website & lead-gen tools by logiover

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👉 Browse all logiover scrapers on Apify Store — 180+ actors across real estate, jobs, crypto, social media & B2B data.

⏰ Scheduling & integration

Put the actor on an Apify schedule to run daily or weekly so newly broken 404 and 5xx links are caught automatically. Results plug straight into Make, n8n, Zapier, the Apify API, webhooks and Google Sheets, so you can push fresh dead-link reports into Slack, email, a spreadsheet or your own dashboard without lifting a finger.

⭐ Support & feedback

Found a bug or need a new field? Open an issue on the Issues tab of this actor and I'll take a look. If this Broken Link Checker saves you time, please leave a ★★★★★ review on the actor page — it genuinely helps others find it and helps me keep improving it.

⚖️ Legal

This actor only accesses publicly available web pages and the links within them, reading HTTP status codes exactly as a browser or search-engine crawler would. It does not log in, bypass access controls, or collect private or personal data. You are responsible for using it in compliance with the target website's Terms of Service, robots.txt, and all applicable laws. Use reasonable concurrency and crawl only sites you are authorized to audit.

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📝 Changelog

2026-07-06

• ✨ README overhaul: richer output sample, ready-to-run example scenarios, cross-promo links, clearer quick-start and expanded FAQ.

2026-07-01

• Maintenance pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data and confirmed successful runs within the 5-minute quality window on the default input.
• Sharpened Store metadata (SEO title & description) and expanded the FAQ with high-intent, long-tail questions for easier discovery in Google and Apify Store search.
• Added ready-to-run example tasks that cover common real-world use cases.

2026-06-15

• Reliability pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data with real-world inputs. Routine maintenance build.

2026-06-07

• Docs: added coverage for exporting broken links to CSV/JSON, site-wide 404 finding without a browser, and full dead-link audit export.

2026-06-05

• 🛡️ Reliability fix: results are no longer dropped by strict output validation — runs now complete cleanly even at high volume (thousands of results).
• ⚡ Stability & performance hardening; fresh rebuild.

2026-06-04

• Verified live & refreshed build — reliability/maintenance pass.