Broken link detection
Dead Links Kill Trust. Catch Them Before Your Visitors Do.
Broken hyperlinks hurt SEO, frustrate visitors, and signal neglect. Sitewatch automatically checks up to 50 links per page — internal and external — and creates incidents with full evidence and CMS-specific fix steps when they break.
- Internal and external hyperlinks checked on every scan
- Full evidence: the link text, where it pointed, and why it failed
- CMS-specific fix steps for WordPress, Next.js, Nuxt, Shopify, and more
Broken links detected
Page hyperlinks
- <a href="/old-page"> — 404 Not Found6:00 AM
- <a href="https://partner.io/deal"> — 410 Gone6:00 AM
- <a href="/pricing"> — 200 OK6:00 AM
- <a href="/for-agencies"> — 200 OK6:00 AM
Free scan
Check your site for broken links — free
Scan any URL in 20 seconds. Sitewatch checks the links and assets your page loads and flags 404s, dead links, and redirect chains — plus broken scripts, security headers, and SSL.
02Beyond one-off crawls
Traditional link checkers vs Sitewatch
| Scenario | Traditional link checker | Sitewatch |
|---|---|---|
| When links are checked | On-demand crawl when you remember | Every 5–30 minutes, continuously |
| Internal links | Checked | Checked — with redirect chain analysis |
| External links | Checked | Checked — HEAD with GET fallback |
| Evidence per broken link | URL and what went wrong | Link text, status, internal/external, redirect chain |
| Fix guidance | None — just a list of broken URLs | CMS-specific steps for WordPress, Next.js, Nuxt, Shopify, and more |
| False positive prevention | Single check | 2-of-3 retry confirmation |
| Alerting | Email report after crawl | 6 channels with deduplication and cooldown |
| Also checks page resources | No | Yes — JS, CSS, images, fonts (see Broken Assets Monitoring) |
When links are checked
- Traditional link checker:
- On-demand crawl when you remember
- Sitewatch:
- Every 5–30 minutes, continuously
Internal links
- Traditional link checker:
- Checked
- Sitewatch:
- Checked — with redirect chain analysis
External links
- Traditional link checker:
- Checked
- Sitewatch:
- Checked — HEAD with GET fallback
Evidence per broken link
- Traditional link checker:
- URL and what went wrong
- Sitewatch:
- Link text, status, internal/external, redirect chain
Fix guidance
- Traditional link checker:
- None — just a list of broken URLs
- Sitewatch:
- CMS-specific steps for WordPress, Next.js, Nuxt, Shopify, and more
False positive prevention
- Traditional link checker:
- Single check
- Sitewatch:
- 2-of-3 retry confirmation
Alerting
- Traditional link checker:
- Email report after crawl
- Sitewatch:
- 6 channels with deduplication and cooldown
Also checks page resources
- Traditional link checker:
- No
- Sitewatch:
- Yes — JS, CSS, images, fonts (see Broken Assets Monitoring)
03How links break
The broken links that cost you traffic and trust
Dead internal links after restructures
CriticalA page gets renamed, a slug changes, or a CMS reorganization leaves anchor tags pointing to pages that no longer exist. Visitors hit 404s. Search engines waste crawl budget on dead ends.
Broken outbound links
ModerateExternal sites you link to go down, rebrand, or restructure. Your visitors click through to dead pages. Your site looks unmaintained and your link equity leaks.
Links caught in redirect chains
ModerateAn internal link points to a URL that redirects three times before landing — or worse, loops. Page speed suffers. SEO value dilutes with every hop.
Soft 404s that look fine but aren't
ModerateA link resolves to a page that loads normally but shows a "not found" message. Traditional link checkers see a healthy response. Sitewatch validates the actual content.
CMS plugin or theme update breaks routes
CriticalA WordPress plugin update changes permalink structures. A theme update removes pages. Dozens of internal links silently break overnight.
Partner and affiliate links go dead
ModerateAffiliate programs shut down, partner companies rebrand, or referral URLs expire. Your carefully placed links become dead ends you never notice.
04Protect your SEO and user experience
Why continuous broken link monitoring matters
Protect your crawl budget
Dead internal links waste Googlebot's crawl budget on 404 pages instead of your valuable content. Fewer dead ends means more of your site gets indexed.
Stop link equity from leaking
Every broken outbound link is wasted link equity. Every broken internal link is a dead end in your site's authority flow. Fix them to keep your SEO value circulating.
Reduce bounce rate
Visitors who click a link and hit a 404 leave. They don't try another link — they go back to Google. Fewer dead links means lower bounce rates and longer sessions.
Get fix steps, not just a URL list
Sitewatch doesn't just report "this link is broken." Each incident includes the link text, status code, internal/external classification, and CMS-specific fix guidance for your stack.
05Fully automatic
How broken link detection works
- 01
Sitewatch parses your page
On every scan, Sitewatch fetches your page HTML and extracts up to 50 unique hyperlinks — both internal links and external outbound links.
- 02
Each link gets checked
Every link found is checked with a fast request, falling back to a full request if a server does not support the quick one. Email, phone and script links are skipped.
- 03
Failures get confirmed
A single failed check doesn't trigger an alert. Sitewatch uses 2-of-3 retry confirmation to eliminate false positives from transient network issues.
- 04
Incident created with evidence
Confirmed broken links create typed incidents with the link URL, anchor text, status code, internal/external classification, redirect chain, and CMS-specific fix steps.
06What you get
Outcomes, not a feature list.
Find the dead links before a visitor or an auditor does.
Links rot quietly — pages get renamed, external sites disappear, and nobody re-reads old content. Sitewatch follows every link on your monitored pages and tells you which ones now lead nowhere, with the text a visitor actually clicks.
50 links
Checked per page
2-of-3
Retry confirmation
5–30 min
Check intervals
Find every broken link on your site
Free plan. 1 site. Up to 50 links checked per page, every scan.
07FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Sitewatch collects up to 50 unique links from each monitored page on every check and follows each one to see where it lands. Anything broken has to fail 2 out of 3 times before it becomes an incident, so a momentary blip never creates noise.
Each broken link incident names the exact URL, the text a visitor clicks, what came back instead of the page, whether the link points inside or outside your site, where any redirects led, and fix steps written for the CMS you actually use.
Yes. Alongside broken links, Sitewatch checks every script, stylesheet, image and font your page loads is really there and arrives as the right kind of file. For a deep dive, see Broken Assets Monitoring.
Dead internal links waste crawl budget and create poor user experiences. Dead outbound links signal an unmaintained site and leak link equity. Google penalizes sites with excessive 404s. Continuous monitoring catches new breakage before search engines do.
Crawl-based tools do deep one-off audits across your entire site. Sitewatch monitors your key pages continuously — every 5 to 30 minutes — and alerts you the moment a link breaks. Use crawlers for periodic audits, Sitewatch for real-time monitoring.
Sitewatch checks standard HTTP/HTTPS hyperlinks — both internal and external. It skips mailto:, tel:, and javascript: links. Up to 50 unique links per page are checked on every scan.
Check intervals are configurable per site — from every 30 minutes on Free up to every 5 minutes on Pro. Deploy hooks trigger instant checks after every release, catching links that break due to route changes.
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