Migrations and URL changes
Find old paths left behind by a redesign, CMS migration, taxonomy change, or product URL update before they become permanent navigation debt.
- Old route discovery
- Migration-rule review
- Post-release recrawl
Broken Link Checker for Internal and External Links
Crawl your website, group repeated link destinations, filter broken internal and external links, and trace every failed target back to the source pages that contain it.
Find Broken Internal Links
Start with a completed crawl to find failed paths within your website. Screpy groups repeated destinations and shows their recorded status, usage and source-page counts, helping you separate one missing page from a sitewide link problem.
- The Broken view includes 404, 410 and 5xx responses; other 4xx responses have their own view.
- Internal labels identify website destinations you can usually restore, replace or redirect.
- Review high-use navigation and conversion links before low-impact references.
- Crawl depth and page capacity limit the source pages included; an undiscovered link is not a healthy-link result.
Source/guides
404
/old-pricing404/setup503
Find Broken External Links
Review unavailable references to other websites without treating every recorded failure as a reason to remove a citation. The External view separates third-party destinations; recorded status and source context help you decide what needs checking.
- Confirm important references still lead to the source promised by the surrounding content.
- Check access restrictions and temporary failures before replacing a destination that works for visitors.
- Choose a relevant replacement or remove an obsolete reference in your source content; Screpy does not edit the external site.
Sourceexample.org
404
/old-pricing404/setup503
Locate Broken Link Sources
Open Source Pages for a destination to see matching crawled pages and usage per page. Many uses on one page are different from one use across many pages; the counts help identify a content edit or a shared menu, footer or template repair.
- Inspect source URLs and their broken, nofollow and empty-anchor counts.
- Search by destination, source URL, anchor text or rel; inspect the actual page to confirm the rendered link and its context.
- The source list follows the active filter and search, so clear them when you need broader source coverage.
- Illustrative case: /services/ and /contact/ both link to /booking-old/, which returns 404. Investigate one failed destination with two source pages, rather than counting two missing destination pages.
- Correct both source links to a relevant available booking page, then recrawl the same scope. Creating a replacement page alone does not repair the links that still point to the old address.
/guides/seo
/shop/linen
/shop/linenTarget
Check Redirected Links
Use the Redirects (3xx) view to locate recorded redirect responses, then confirm the intended final destination. A legitimate redirect can preserve an old public address while your own source links can point directly to the current URL.
- Find the source pages that still reference an old path after a migration or URL change.
- Check the final page and any redirect hops directly; the grouped Links table is not a full redirect-chain viewer.
- Update links you control and preserve useful redirects for external references and bookmarks.
- /old-pricing301
- /pricing200
Export Broken Link Reports
Narrow the Links table with a preset and search, then export the loaded destination rows as CSV or Excel. Share a focused set of targets and counts with the person who owns the repair.
- Exports include destination, status, usage and source-page counts from the current table page.
- An export does not collect every page of a large filtered result automatically.
- Open Source Pages separately for individual source URLs; its dialog has no export control.
CSV50
Verify Broken Link Fixes
After publishing a repair, run another crawl with comparable scope and inspect the destination and its sources again. A lower broken count is useful only when the affected visitor path is actually repaired.
- Confirm the original source now links to the intended available URL, not just that a replacement page exists.
- Keep depth, page capacity and rendering mode comparable; missing or blocked sources can make counts fall without a fix.
- Select the new crawl to review fresh results. Earlier crawl records do not update when you edit your site.
Before62→After87
Talk about Website Broken Link Checker. With SEO MCP.
Ask your AI assistant to find broken links in your Screpy crawl, identify the pages linking to them and explain which destinations need attention through SEO MCP.
- Screpy: Hello! Let’s look at Website Broken Link Checker for example.com. What would you like to know?
- You: Show the broken internal links for example.com and their source pages.
- Screpy: /collections/linen links to an old product URL returning 404. Review the replacement destination before updating that link. Broken link evidence: /collections/linen: Source page. /products/linen-shirt-old: 404.
- You: Turn that into a short action plan.
- Screpy: I’ll keep the evidence and recommendations separate. Review the findings, choose one change and check the results afterward. Your next steps: Review: Check the source and date of each finding.. Decide: Choose the first change to make.. Verify: Compare the results after the change..
- You: Can you explain the evidence in plain language?
- Screpy: Yes. Ask about a supported result and I can explain what it shows, where it comes from and what is still uncertain. Missing data stays unavailable; recommendations are not automatic fixes.
Turn a failed destination into a verified repair.
Do not stop at a 404 count. Confirm crawl coverage, separate ownership, find the source relationship, repair the root cause, and prove the change in a comparable crawl.
-
Crawl the website with representative coverage
Use a starting URL, depth, page capacity, and rendering mode that can reach the templates and content areas you intend to evaluate. A partial crawl can only produce a partial link inventory.
-
Filter broken destinations by ownership
Start with the Broken view, then separate internal destinations from external references. Internal URLs are normally under your control; external failures may require replacement, removal, or manual verification.
-
Trace the destination back to its source pages
Open Source Pages, compare usage counts, and inspect representative pages. A failure repeated across hundreds of URLs often belongs to one shared component rather than hundreds of independent edits.
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Choose the repair and verify it with a new crawl
Restore, correct, replace, remove, or redirect the destination according to user intent. Then recrawl the same scope and confirm controllable source links now point to a successful intended URL.
Use Broken Link Checker when link integrity can change at scale.
The workflow is most valuable when one routing, content, or template change can affect many user journeys at once.
Navigation and shared templates
Use source-page and usage counts to identify one broken footer, menu, product card, or reusable component that affects many pages.
- Repeated destination groups
- Shared-component diagnosis
- One root-cause repair
Content and reference maintenance
Review outdated external references and internal content links so readers still reach a useful, current destination.
- External reference review
- Internal article cleanup
- Destination-intent check
Release and maintenance checks
Compare link findings after content releases, routing changes, deleted pages, or recurring site maintenance.
- Before-and-after crawl scope
- New failure detection
- Published-fix verification
Choose the link analysis that matches the scope.
Audit the full link graph, investigate links within a broader technical crawl, or check one live page without creating an account.
Crawl a website, group link destinations, filter broken internal and external links, and trace each target to its source pages.
Connect link findings with page, image, crawlability, metadata, indexability, and other technical SEO evidence.
Check links discovered on one public page without starting a full website crawl. This snapshot cannot establish broken-link coverage across the whole site.
Related SEO guides
Learn the concepts behind this workflow and apply them with practical SEO guidance.
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How Does an SEO Crawler Find Technical Website Issues?
An SEO crawler follows links and checks URLs for broken links, redirect chains, duplicate pages, canonical errors, indexability issues to prioritize fixes.
Read articleBroken Link Checker FAQ
Understand destination failures, source pages, internal and external ownership, redirects, false positives, prioritization, repair choices, and recrawl verification.
What counts as a broken link?
A broken link sends a visitor to a missing or failing destination. In Screpy, the Broken filter specifically includes recorded 404, 410 and 5xx responses. Use Client Errors (4xx) to investigate other client responses such as 403 or 429. Missing status or a network failure is not automatically included in Broken; confirm the destination before changing its source link.
Is every redirect a broken link?
No. Redirects can be intentional and necessary. For links you control, the cleaner result is usually to point directly to the intended final URL while keeping legitimate redirects for old public URLs that still receive traffic or backlinks.
Is a 404 page the same as a broken link?
Not exactly. A 404 is a destination response. It becomes a broken-link problem when another crawled page links to that unavailable URL. A useful audit therefore needs both the failed destination and the pages that reference it.
How do I verify that broken links were fixed?
Publish the repair, run a new crawl with comparable settings, and confirm the source pages now point directly to a successful intended destination. A working replacement page alone does not prove the original source link was updated.
Does Screpy check both internal and external links?
Yes. The Links report separates internal and external destinations. Internal failures usually require a repair within your website, while an unavailable third-party reference may need to be verified, replaced, or removed.
Will fixing broken links automatically improve rankings?
No tool can guarantee a ranking increase. Repairing broken internal paths can improve navigation, crawl access, and maintenance quality, while fixing external references can improve usefulness and trust. Search performance still depends on relevance, content quality, competition, authority, and many other signals.
What is the difference between Broken Link Checker and Website Audit?
Broken Link Checker focuses on link destinations, usage, issue counts, and source pages. Website Audit connects those findings with pages, images, crawlability, metadata, indexability, and the wider technical SEO investigation.
How should I fix a broken link?
Restore the destination when it should still exist, correct a mistyped URL, replace an outdated reference, remove a link that no longer helps, or redirect an old internal URL to its closest relevant replacement. Do not send every missing page to the homepage.
Which broken links should I fix first?
Start with internal links in navigation, conversion paths, important landing pages, and shared templates. Then review high-usage destinations and external references that materially support the page. Prioritize user impact and source-page importance, not only the raw number of observations.
What does a website broken link checker do?
A website broken link checker crawls pages, discovers link destinations, checks whether those destinations can be reached, and shows the source pages that contain failed links. Screpy groups repeated destinations so one shared problem can be investigated as one root cause.
Why can browser and crawler link results differ?
A destination may require a session, restrict automated requests, rate-limit access or have failed temporarily when the crawl ran. The report records that crawl’s response; opening the link later does not refresh it. Inspect the recorded status, verify the visitor experience, and recrawl after an access or link repair.
Why are source pages important in a broken-link report?
The destination tells you what failed; the source page tells you where to fix the relationship. Screpy shows source pages and usage counts so you can distinguish one isolated content link from a destination repeated by a navigation element, footer, or shared component.
Why can one broken destination appear on hundreds of pages?
A global footer, navigation menu, reusable card, or CMS template can generate the same link on every page. Screpy groups destination usage and lists source pages so the shared component can be repaired once instead of editing every URL separately.