Broken Link Checker: Find 404s and Dead Links, $1 per 1,000 URLs

Crawl any website or URL list to detect broken links and the exact failure mode. Returns HTTP status code, error category (4xx, 5xx, DNS, timeout, SSL, redirect-loop), response time, the source page, the link anchor text, and the full redirect chain. Configurable crawl depth, link-type filters (internal / external / asset), and concurrency. Built for bulk: feed it 100,000 URLs or seed it with a starting domain and let it discover everything. Ideal for SEO maintenance, migration QA, content audits, and link-hygiene monitoring.

Open on Apify → Try it now

Pricing

$0.001/URL

RAM

128MB

Coverage

Any website

Output fields

15+

Proxy

Apify datacenter

Tech

HTTP HEAD/GET probe

What you get

Per-link verdict: status_code, error_category, is_broken, response_time_ms
Context: source_page, anchor_text, link_type (internal / external / image / script), rel attribute
Redirect chain: final_url, redirect_count, redirect_chain[], has_redirect_loop
Error detail: error_message, ssl_error, dns_error, timeout_ms_exceeded
Crawl controls: max_depth, follow_external, include_assets, max_links_per_page

Primary use cases

SEO maintenance. Run a monthly crawl to catch 404s and bad outbound links before they hurt rankings
Migration QA. After a site relaunch, verify every internal and external link still resolves to 200
Content audits. Identify dead links in old articles for retirement or replacement
Link-hygiene monitoring. Alert when a high-traffic outbound link starts returning 5xx or redirecting offsite
Vendor portal QA. Continuously test customer-facing portals for broken downloads and asset URLs

API example

# Start a run via the Apify API
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/santamaria-automations~broken-link-checker/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "startUrls": [
      "https://example.com",
      "https://docs.example.com"
    ],
    "maxDepth": 3,
    "followExternal": true,
    "includeAssets": false,
    "maxLinksPerPage": 200
  }'

# Or use with AI agents via MCP:
# https://mcp.apify.com?tools=santamaria-automations/broken-link-checker

Integrations

n8n, Make, Zapier: trigger runs and process records via webhook
AI Agents (MCP): Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, LangChain, LlamaIndex
Python, Node.js: Apify SDK for programmatic access
Google Sheets, Airtable: bulk input in, structured data out

Output fields

Field	Type	Example
url	string	https://example.com/old-page
source_page	string	https://example.com/blog/2024-recap
anchor_text	string	our 2024 roadmap
status_code	integer	404
error_category	string	client_error
is_broken	boolean	true
response_time_ms	integer	142
link_type	string	internal
redirect_count	integer	0
checked_at	string	2026-06-13T10:15:42Z

Related Actors

Sitemap URL Discovery: seed the link checker with every URL declared in the sitemap
SEO Metadata Extractor: pair link health with SEO score on the same crawl
SSL Certificate Inspector: investigate SSL errors flagged by the link checker

Open on Apify → Try it now (free tier available)