--- title: "Broken Link Checker for Your Whole Site, Free | WebPixie" description: "Crawl every page, find every broken link. Internal and external link integrity with status codes and redirects. Free plan included." canonical: "https://webpixie.io/features/link-crawler" source_path: "/features/link-crawler" lang: "en" generated_by: "scripts/generate-md.mjs" --- [Back to Features](/features.md) Link Crawler # Broken link checker that crawls every page on your site Internal and external link integrity across your whole site, with status codes, redirects, and each page’s meta tags. Start monitoring free Full-site crawl Internal + external links Free plan, no credit card The Link Crawler is included in the free plan. [Compare all plans](/pricing.md) ### Every link checked, with its status, time, and size The crawler reports each internal and external link with its HTTP status, response time, and content size, so broken links and slow pages stand out. ### Discovered automatically from your homepage WebPixie starts at your homepage and follows links across your site, building the crawl from publicly accessible pages. No sitemap upload and no login. ## How WebPixie crawls your site WebPixie crawls every page on your monitored site, follows every link, and flags any link that does not load successfully, such as a 404, a 5xx error, or a timeout. The crawl covers internal links between pages on your domain and external links pointing out to other domains. Beyond status codes, the Link Crawler records each link’s redirect status, response time, content size, and the page’s meta tags. That is the level of detail SEO teams need without running a separate site auditor. Crawl depth depends on your plan; compare current crawl limits on the pricing page. Each crawl run produces a full report of every internal and external link it finds. 01 ### Find broken links before customers do Full-site crawl across internal and external links A broken link on a key page costs traffic, conversions, and trust. The Link Crawler walks every page on your monitored site, follows every link, and flags any that does not return a successful response, naming 404s, 5xx errors, and timeouts. Broken URLs also waste search-engine crawl budget and bleed away the link equity that should flow through your pages. This catches the long tail of broken links that uptime monitoring, which only checks one URL, cannot see. 02 ### Get technical data beyond status codes Redirect status, response time, and page meta tags A successful response does not always mean healthy. A wrong canonical, a mismatched hreflang, or an unintended rel=nofollow can cause real problems. Every crawled link produces a full report: its status code, response time, content size, and the page’s meta tags. 03 ### Catch external link rot Outbound links break over time without warning External links break for reasons you do not control: the target site moves, the page is deleted, the domain expires. Every site accumulates dead outbound links. WebPixie checks external links on every crawl and flags those returning 404, 410, or a redirect status. 04 ### No setup, scheduled re-crawls Automatic discovery from your homepage, re-crawled on a schedule There is nothing to install and no sitemap to upload. WebPixie discovers links starting from your homepage and follows them across your site, visiting only publicly accessible pages. It crawls the links it finds even when robots.txt would tell a search engine to skip them, because the only way to confirm a linked page works and see what it links to is to fetch it. Each site is re-crawled automatically on a schedule, typically about once a week and never more than once every 24 hours. ### Set up link crawling in 60 seconds Free plan, no credit card. Compare crawl limits by plan. [Start monitoring free](https://app.webpixie.io/app?lang=en&utm_source=website&utm_medium=website_link&utm_campaign=features_link_crawler&utm_content=mid_cta) ## Everything you need to monitor a website. In one workspace. A quick look at other WebPixie features. Link Crawler Find broken links before your visitors do. Currently viewing [Uptime](/features/uptime-monitoring.md) Catch downtime first with multi-region and keyword checks. Learn more [Domain](/features/domain-monitoring.md) Never be caught off guard by a domain renewal or transfer. Learn more [DNS](/features/dns-monitoring.md) Spot unexpected DNS and DNSSEC changes with daily checks. Learn more [SSL](/features/ssl-monitoring.md) Get warned 15 days before certificates expire, with daily SSL checks. Learn more [Certificates](/features/certificates-manager.md) See every certificate and its expiry in one place. Learn more [Main Page Analyzer](/features/main-page-analyzer.md) Find what slows down or breaks your homepage. Learn more [Indexability](/features/indexability-checker.md) Check whether search and AI engines can access your content. Learn more [Incidents](/features/incident-management.md) Track failures from detection to resolution in one place. Learn more [API](/features/api-integration.md) Automate monitoring with the GraphQL and REST API. Learn more [Workspaces](/features/workspace-management.md) Organize monitoring and bring your team into one workspace. Learn more ## Why teams choose WebPixie for link health ### Set up in 60 seconds No agent to install. Enter a domain and WebPixie discovers links from your homepage and starts crawling on a schedule. ### Your whole site in one workspace Link health sits next to uptime, SSL, DNS, and domain monitoring, with one dashboard across all of them. ### Internal and external links together The crawler checks both internal links between your pages and outbound links to other domains, so dead internal paths and broken external links surface in the same report. ### Frequently Asked Questions Common questions about the Link Crawler. ### Does WebPixie check for broken links? Yes, WebPixie checks for broken internal and external links with the Link Crawler. The [Link Crawler](/features/link-crawler.md) starts from your homepage, discovers links, and records per-link health data such as HTTP status code, response time, content size, page title, favicon, redirects, and timeout behavior. This helps identify 4xx errors, 5xx errors, missing pages, broken campaign links, slow destinations, and unexpected redirects that can hurt user experience or search visibility. The crawler also extracts SEO-related attributes such as rel values, canonical URLs, hreflang tags, and meta data, so you can understand whether a link is merely reachable or also technically healthy. Re-crawls can run at most once every 24 hours, and crawl limits depend on your plan. You can compare limits on the [pricing page](/pricing.md), then pair results with the [Indexability Checker](/features/indexability-checker.md) for broader crawlability review. ### How often does the Link Crawler scan my site? The Link Crawler can re-scan discovered links at most once every 24 hours. WebPixie starts by discovering links from your homepage, then schedules automatic re-crawls with fair round-robin dispatch across all sites in your workspace. Crawl limits per site depend on your plan, and the current limits are listed on the [pricing page](/pricing.md). During each [Link Crawler](/features/link-crawler.md) scan, WebPixie records status code, response time, content size, page title, favicon, rel attributes, canonical URLs, hreflang tags, and related meta data. This helps you catch broken internal or external links, slow pages, unexpected redirects, and link-level SEO issues. For broader crawlability and indexing signals, pair crawler results with the [Indexability Checker](/features/indexability-checker.md). ### Can the Link Crawler check external links too? Yes. The [Link Crawler](/features/link-crawler.md) checks both internal links between pages on your monitored domain and external links pointing out to other domains on every crawl run. Each external link is checked for status code, redirect outcome, and response time, so external link rot surfaces in the report for review. Outbound links break for reasons you do not control, such as a target page being deleted or a domain expiring, and every site accumulates dead external links over time. The crawler flags those returning 404 or 410, or responding with a redirect status. Pair it with the [Indexability Checker](/features/indexability-checker.md) for broader crawlability signals, and compare crawl limits on the [pricing page](/pricing.md). ### Does WebPixie crawl pages behind authentication? No. The [Link Crawler](/features/link-crawler.md) follows only publicly accessible links, starting from your homepage, so it does not log in or send credentials, and pages that require authentication are not crawled. If you need to check a private URL, [uptime monitoring](/features/uptime-monitoring.md) supports authentication, custom headers, and expected status codes, though it checks one endpoint at a time rather than crawling a whole site. You can review per-plan crawl limits on the [pricing page](/pricing.md). ### Does the Link Crawler follow robots.txt? No. The [Link Crawler](/features/link-crawler.md) does not skip links that robots.txt would disallow, because it has to fetch each linked page to confirm the link works and to read the sublinks on it. Honoring robots.txt mid-crawl would leave gaps in your link health report, so the crawler checks every link it discovers from your homepage. Whether a URL is eligible for search engines or AI crawlers is a separate question that belongs to indexability rather than link health; a consolidated per-page indexable or blocked verdict is coming soon. This keeps link health and crawl eligibility as two distinct signals. For the search-eligibility side, pair it with the [Indexability Checker](/features/indexability-checker.md), and review per-plan crawl limits on the [pricing page](/pricing.md). [See all FAQs](/resources/faq.md) ### Ready to crawl your site? Free plan, no credit card. Full-site crawl across internal and external links. [Start monitoring free](https://app.webpixie.io/app?lang=en&utm_source=website&utm_medium=website_link&utm_campaign=features_link_crawler&utm_content=bottom_cta) [See all features](/features.md) ## Source Attribution This file is automatically generated by WebPixie AI and summarizes publicly available content from WebPixie pages. Authoritative details should always be verified from the original URLs.