Links
The Links section discovers all links found on the analyzed web page and analyzes the status of these links.
Through this section, users can:
- View all links found on the page
- Distinguish between internal and external links
- Detect broken links
- Examine HTTP response statuses
This analysis is used to check the link health on websites and detect errors that may affect user experience.
Some features and limits mentioned on this page vary by plan. Visit our Pricing page to review the plans.
Page Check Information
Before performing link analysis, WebPixie collects basic technical information about the analyzed page.
The following information is displayed in this section:
Check Status
Indicates whether the page was successfully analyzed.
HTTP Status Code
Shows the HTTP status code returned by the server for the page.
Example: 200 – Page loaded successfully
Response Time
Shows the server's response time to the request.
This value is measured in milliseconds (ms).
Check Time
Shows when the page was last analyzed by WebPixie.
Content Size
Shows the total content size of the page.
This value typically represents the size of the HTML page.
Meta Tags
Allows viewing the meta tags found on the page.
These tags typically include:
- SEO meta information
- Open Graph tags
- Social media preview information
Header Information
Allows viewing the HTTP response header information of the page.
This information includes:
- Security headers
- Cache settings
- Content type
Sub Links
The sub links section lists all links found on the analyzed page.
WebPixie automatically discovers and classifies these links.
On the Links overview card, "Blocked" and "Failed" reflect the status of the crawl run itself, not individual link states. Per-link status and tags are shown in each page's sublinks detail below.
Links are displayed under two categories:
Internal Links
Links that are within the same domain of the website.
For example:
- example.com/about
- example.com/contact
- example.com/blog
Internal links are important for site navigation and SEO structure.
External Links
Links that redirect to other domains.
For example:
- facebook.com
- twitter.com
- youtube.com
External links are typically used for:
- Social media
- Third-party services
- External resources
External links are discovered and listed, but they are not crawled or health-checked — WebPixie does not verify whether an external link is broken, redirects, or is reachable. Only internal links receive the HTTP status/health checks described below.
Link Information
The following information is displayed for each link:
URL
Shows the target address of the link.
Link Text
The visible text of the link on the page.
Link Count
Shows how many times the same link is used within the page.
HTTP Status
WebPixie checks each internal link and analyzes the HTTP status code.
Example statuses:
| Status Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 200 | Link is working |
| 301 / 302 | Redirect exists |
| 404 | Broken link |
| 500 | Server error |
The Link Crawler shows the 3xx status when a link redirects, but it does not follow or record the full redirect chain — only the destination-following waterfall on the Main Page view does that. Likewise, run-to-run crawl history and comparison are only available on the Main Page view, not here.
Rel Attributes
Shows the rel attributes declared on the link (e.g. nofollow, ugc, sponsored) — available for both internal and external links, since this is read directly from the link itself.
Meta Tags
For each checked internal link, WebPixie also records the target page's meta tags, including canonical URL and hreflang.
Reverse Link Lookup
For any given URL, WebPixie can show which crawled pages link to it. The target can be one of your own pages (revealing its internal inbound links) or an external destination (revealing which of your pages link out to it).
This is useful for understanding a page's internal link structure, or for auditing which pages point to a specific external resource.
Broken Link Detection
WebPixie automatically detects broken internal links by checking the links within the page.
Broken links typically occur in the following situations:
- Deleted pages
- Incorrect URL redirects
This detection applies to internal links only. External links are listed but not checked for availability (see the note under External Links above).
Broken links can negatively impact user experience and SEO rankings. Regularly check and fix broken links on your website.
This allows users to quickly identify and fix faulty links on their sites.
Re-crawl Schedule
WebPixie automatically re-crawls the site on a schedule, typically about once a week. The exact cadence can vary, but there is always a minimum of 24 hours between two crawl runs for the same site.
robots.txt Behavior
The Link Crawler does not honor robots.txt while crawling — it still crawls every discovered internal link, even if robots.txt would disallow it. This is necessary because the crawler must fetch a page to confirm it works and to read its sublinks.
Links that robots.txt disallows are not skipped, but they are labeled accordingly so they can be identified and filtered.
Authentication
The Link Crawler only crawls publicly accessible pages — it does not support Basic Auth or custom headers, so pages behind a login or access-gated staging environment cannot be crawled.
Link Tags
Each crawled link is automatically labeled with a status tag, which can be used to filter the link list. The possible tags are:
- OK — the link works as expected
- Redirect — the link returns a redirect
- Not found — the link returns a 404
- Authentication required — the link requires login/authentication to access
- Client error — the link returns a 4xx error other than "not found"
- Server error — the link returns a 5xx error
- Unreachable — the link could not be reached at all
- Blocked by robots.txt — the link is disallowed by robots.txt (still crawled, see above)
- Not found in sitemap — the link was crawled but is missing from the site's sitemap (only shown when Sitemap Monitoring is enabled)