Broken Backlink Checker
Find links from other sites pointing at pages on yours that no longer resolve. Each one is authority already earned and currently stranded. Results are grouped by destination, because one redirect usually reclaims many links at once.
Short answer
A broken backlink is a link from another site pointing at a page of yours that no longer resolves. The link still carries authority; the destination simply fails. These are the cheapest links you will ever earn, because someone already chose to link to you and the only missing piece is a 301 redirect you control. Fix the destination rather than emailing the sites: one redirect reclaims every link pointing at that URL.
Why broken backlinks are worth more than new ones
Earning a link means producing something worth linking to, finding the people who might, and persuading them. Reclaiming one means writing a redirect. The authority is identical and the effort is not comparable.
- The decision is already made. Somebody judged your page worth citing. That is the part of link building that cannot be automated, and it is already done.
- One fix covers many links. Dead URLs accumulate links over years, so the ratio of work to recovery is better than anything else in SEO.
- Nobody has to agree. Outreach depends on a stranger doing you a favour. A redirect depends on you.
Where these come from
Almost always a migration, a CMS change, a deleted product or a content cleanup. Any of those can strand years of links in an afternoon, which is why this is the first check worth running after one.
What to do with each kind of broken link
The reason a destination fails decides the fix. The table prints the reason on every row so the choice is not a guess.
| What the destination does | What it usually means | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| 404 or 410 | The page was deleted or the URL changed | 301 to the closest live equivalent |
| 5xx error | The page may still exist but the server is failing | Fix the server error first; do not redirect yet |
| Redirect ending nowhere | A chain that now terminates on a dead page | Point the first hop straight at a live page |
| No answer at all | Host, DNS or firewall is refusing the crawler | Check the page loads for a logged-out visitor |
Redirect to something close, not to the homepage
A 301 redirect is only honoured when the target is a reasonable substitute for what was asked for. Send a deleted product to its category and the link equity is recovered. Send everything to the homepage and Google treats it as a soft 404, which passes nothing and wastes the work. If there is genuinely no equivalent, a useful 404 that offers the next best thing beats a misleading redirect.
Running it on a competitor
A competitor's broken backlinks are links pointing at content that no longer exists. That is a genuinely different outreach position: you are not asking someone to replace a working link with yours, you are telling them something on their page is broken and offering the fix.
It only works if you actually have the better live equivalent. Without it the email is a cold pitch with extra steps, and it reads as one. Check what the dead URL used to be, confirm you have something at least as good, then write to the handful of linking pages with real authority rather than all of them.
How to reclaim broken backlinks
- 01
Enter your own domain first
This is a reclamation tool before it is a research tool. The links worth recovering are the ones already pointing at you that currently go nowhere.
- 02
Read the destination column, not the source
The unit of work is the dead URL, not the link. Twenty links to one missing page are one redirect to write, and the table groups them so that is obvious.
- 03
Start with the most-linked dead URL
The summary names it. One 301 from that URL to the closest live page recovers every link pointing at it, usually in minutes.
- 04
Redirect before you email anyone
Asking a site to edit an old post works perhaps a tenth of the time. A redirect works every time, needs nobody's cooperation, and is reversible.
- 05
Only chase the links a redirect cannot fix
If the linking page itself has the URL wrong in a way no redirect catches, a short, specific email is worth it for a high-authority source. Use the authority column to decide which few are worth the effort.
What you get
Grouped by destination
The unit of work is the dead URL, so the redirect list is obvious
The reason each one failed
404, server error or a chain ending nowhere, printed per row
Linking authority
0 to 10 per linking domain, so you can rank the fixes by what they recover
The biggest win named
The dead URL with the most links pointing at it, called out above the table
Searchable table
Filter by destination, linking site or anchor without re-running
CSV export
The full row set, ready to become a redirect map
Not the same as the broken link checker
Frequently asked questions
What is a broken backlink?
A link from another site pointing at a page on yours that no longer resolves. The link still exists and still carries authority, but the destination returns a 404, a 410, a server error, or a redirect that ends nowhere. The authority is stranded rather than lost, which is what makes these worth finding.
Why do broken backlinks matter?
Because they are the cheapest links you will ever earn. Somebody already decided to link to you; the only thing standing between that link and a working page is a redirect you control. No outreach, no content, no negotiation. Most sites with any history have a handful, and some have thousands.
How do I fix a broken backlink?
Add a 301 redirect from the dead URL to the closest live equivalent. That recovers every link pointing at that URL at once. Redirect to the most relevant page you have rather than the homepage: a redirect to something unrelated is treated as a soft 404 and recovers nothing.
Should I email the sites that linked to me?
Usually not first. Editing an old post is work for someone who gets nothing from it, and the success rate is low. Fix it on your side with a redirect, which needs nobody's agreement. Save outreach for the few cases a redirect cannot catch, and pick those by the authority column.
What counts as broken here?
A link whose destination the index could not resolve to a live page: a 4xx, a 5xx, or a redirect chain that ends somewhere dead. The reason is printed on each row, so you can tell a missing page from a server error, which need different fixes.
How is this different from a broken link checker?
Direction. A broken link checker reads one of your pages and reports the outbound links on it that are dead, which is a housekeeping job. This reads the whole link index and reports inbound links from other sites that are dead, which is a reclamation job. Same word, opposite directions, and only one of them recovers authority.
Is it really free?
Yes, with no account and no API key. The data is licensed rather than openly published, so there is a fair-use daily limit shown under the input, and a domain somebody checked in the past week is served from cache without counting against it.
How many broken backlinks does it show?
The strongest 100, ordered by the authority of the linking domain, with the real total reported above the table. On a large site the total can run into the thousands; the top of that list is where the recoverable value is concentrated.
Can I check a competitor for broken backlinks?
Yes, and it is a legitimate tactic. Links pointing at a competitor's dead pages are links to content that no longer exists. If you have a genuinely better live equivalent, the sites linking to the missing page have a reason to hear from you, which is a far stronger pitch than a cold ask.
Why does a redirect sometimes not recover the link?
If the redirect target is not a close match for what was originally linked, Google can treat it as a soft 404 and pass nothing. Redirecting a deleted product to the category it belonged to usually works; redirecting everything to the homepage usually does not.
Do nofollow broken backlinks matter?
Less, but they are not worthless. A nofollow link still sends referral traffic to a page that currently 404s, and fixing the destination fixes that regardless of what the link passes. The table flags nofollow so you can deprioritise rather than ignore.
How often should I check?
After any site migration, URL change or large content cleanup, which is when broken backlinks are created in bulk. Otherwise once a quarter is enough: the number drifts up slowly as other sites change their links and old pages get retired.
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Read guideTerms this tool checks
- Backlink
A backlink (also called an inbound link or incoming link) is a hyperlink from one website to another.
- 301 Redirect
A 301 redirect is a permanent server-side redirect that tells search engines a page has permanently moved to a new URL.
- Link Equity
Link equity (also called link juice or PageRank) is the ranking value passed from one page to another through hyperlinks.
- Referring Domain
A referring domain is a unique website that contains at least one backlink pointing to your site.
Reclaimed links deserve a page that works
A redirect recovers the link; it does not fix whatever else is wrong with the page it lands on. CrawlRaven audits every page for the issues that quietly hold rankings back, then ranks them by the traffic each page already earns.