# Broken Link Checker & URL Status Checker: 404s & Dead Links (`datawright-labs/broken-link-checker`) Actor Broken links, 404 links and dead links checker: crawl any website and find 404s, 5xx errors, dead domains, timeouts, broken images and redirect chains, with the page and anchor text of each. Callable by AI agents via MCP. $0.50 per 1,000 URLs checked. - **URL**: https://apify.com/datawright-labs/broken-link-checker.md - **Developed by:** [Datawright Labs](https://apify.com/datawright-labs) (community) - **Categories:** SEO tools, Developer tools - **Features:** Limited permissions - **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 85.7% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing from $0.40 / 1,000 url checkeds This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events. Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have. Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event ## What's an Apify Actor? An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes. In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours, and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store. In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server. Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md. ## How to integrate an Actor? If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects. You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready. Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run. For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below. Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`). # README **For AI agents:** Use when asked to find broken links or 404s on a site, check dead links in docs, or verify a list of URLs still work. Call with `startUrls` (sites to crawl; required), optional `maxPagesPerSite` (default 200), `maxDepth`, `checkExternalLinks`, `checkResources` (images/scripts/CSS), `outputMode` (`problems`, `problemsAndRedirects`, `all`), `excludePatterns`. Returns one row per bad URL: `status`, `httpStatus`, `error`, `url`, `firstFoundOn`, `anchorText`, `foundOnCount`, `linkType` (redirect rows add `finalUrl`, `redirectCount`). Cost: $0.0005 per unique URL checked ($0.50 per 1,000); each URL charged once per run, robots-blocked and mailto/tel links free. **For people:** Ask your agent "crawl docs.example.com, find the broken links and tell me which pages to fix" and it runs the crawl here and hands back a fix list: the dead link, the page it is on, and its anchor text. A 200-page site with ~2,000 unique links costs about $1. **Find every broken link on a website in one run.** Enter a domain, and this broken link checker crawls its pages, checks **every internal and external link** (and optionally every **image, script and stylesheet**), and gives you a clean list of **404s, 410s, 5xx server errors, dead domains (DNS failures), timeouts, TLS errors and redirect chains**, each with the **exact pages and anchor text where the bad link appears**, so you know what to fix and where. No browser, no install, no desktop crawler licence: it's a fast HTTP link checker that runs in the cloud, handles **many websites per run**, exports to **CSV, Excel, JSON or Google Sheets**, and can run on a **schedule** to catch new dead links before your visitors (and Google) do. ### What does this broken link checker do? - ๐Ÿ•ท๏ธ **Crawls your site** from any start URL (same host, `www.` ignored), up to your page and depth limits, respecting `robots.txt`. - ๐Ÿ”— **Checks every link it finds**: internal links, **outbound/external links**, and optionally **images, scripts and CSS** (broken image checker). - ๐Ÿšฆ **Classifies each URL**: `broken` (404, 410, 5xx, DNS lookup failed, connection refused, timeout, bad TLS certificate, malformed URL), `blocked` (401/403/429/999: the site refused automated checks, verify by hand), `redirect` (works, but via 1+ redirects) or `ok`. - ๐Ÿ“ **Shows where each broken link is**: `foundOn` lists the source pages with **anchor text**, plus a total `foundOnCount`, so you can fix the most-linked dead URLs first. - ๐Ÿ” **Redirect audit**: final URL and hop count for every redirected link, to clean up redirect chains and update internal links. - ๐Ÿงพ A **SUMMARY** record with pages crawled per site, counts per status and the **pages with the most broken links**. - โšก **Fast and light**: header-only checks, parallel requests with a per-host politeness limit, automatic retries for timeouts, 429s and 5xx. ### Use cases - **SEO audits**: broken internal links waste crawl budget and leak link equity; dead outbound links hurt user trust. - **Website migrations & redesigns**: verify every old URL still resolves or redirects after a relaunch. - **Content maintenance**: find dead references in old blog posts, docs and knowledge bases. - **Agencies**: run one job across all client sites every week and send the report to Sheets or Slack. - **Link building / outreach**: find broken outbound links on other sites (broken link building). ### How to use it 1. Paste one or more websites into **Websites to check** (e.g. `https://example.com`). 2. Set **Max pages to crawl per site** (start with 50-200) and, optionally, turn on **Check images, scripts and stylesheets**. 3. Click **Start**. Open the **Broken & blocked links** view, or download CSV/Excel. #### Input example ```json { "startUrls": ["https://example.com", "https://blog.example.org"], "maxPagesPerSite": 500, "checkExternalLinks": true, "checkResources": true, "outputMode": "problemsAndRedirects", "excludePatterns": ["/tag/", "?replytocom="] } ``` To check the links on **a single page** only, set `maxDepth` to `0`. ### Output example ```json { "url": "https://example.com/old-pricing", "status": "broken", "httpStatus": 404, "error": null, "isInternal": true, "linkType": "page", "site": "example.com", "foundOnCount": 3, "foundOn": [ { "pageUrl": "https://example.com/blog/launch", "anchorText": "see our pricing", "tag": "a" }, { "pageUrl": "https://example.com/faq", "anchorText": "pricing page", "tag": "a" } ], "firstFoundOn": "https://example.com/blog/launch", "anchorText": "see our pricing", "finalUrl": null, "redirectCount": 0, "contentType": "text/html", "responseTimeMs": 182, "checkedAt": "2026-10-20T01:00:00.000Z" } ``` Rows are sorted with broken links first, then blocked, then redirects, each by number of occurrences. ### How much does it cost to check a website for broken links? You pay **$0.0005 per unique URL checked** ($0.50 per 1,000), whether it's a crawled page or a link target. Every URL is checked once per run even if it appears on hundreds of pages. Excluded URLs, `robots.txt`-disallowed URLs and `mailto:`/`tel:` links are free. No start fee. | Job | Unique URLs checked (typical) | Cost | |---|---|---| | One page's links (`maxDepth: 0`) | ~50-150 | **~$0.03-0.08** | | Small site, 50 pages | ~500 | **~$0.25** | | 1,000 unique URLs | 1,000 | **$0.50** | | Blog/docs site, 500 pages + images | ~5,000 | **~$2.50** | | Weekly check of 10 small client sites | ~5,000/week | **~$10/month** | - Apify's **free plan includes $5 of monthly credit**, i.e. about **10,000 link checks a month for free**. - Paid Apify plans get automatic discounts: **Silver -10%**, **Gold and above -20%**. - Set **Max pages to crawl per site** and **Maximum cost per run** to hard-cap spend; the Actor stops cleanly at the limit. ### Broken link checker vs. the alternatives | | This Actor | Free online checkers | Desktop SEO crawlers | Site-audit SaaS | |---|---|---|---|---| | No install, runs in the cloud | โœ… | โœ… | โŒ | โœ… | | Pages per scan | as many as you set | often capped (e.g. a few hundred) | large, limited by your PC / licence | by plan | | Internal + external + image links | โœ… | partial | โœ… | โœ… | | Source page + anchor text per broken link | โœ… | sometimes | โœ… | โœ… | | Many sites per run, API, schedules, webhooks | โœ… | โŒ | โŒ | partial | | CSV / Excel / JSON / Google Sheets | โœ… | rarely | โœ… | โœ… | | Cost model | $0.50 per 1,000 URLs, no subscription | free with caps | annual licence | monthly subscription | ### Use it as an API (Python, JavaScript, cURL) Every Apify Actor is also a REST API, so you can run this broken link checker from your own code, CI pipeline, a no-code tool or an AI agent. #### Python ```python from apify_client import ApifyClient client = ApifyClient("") run = client.actor("datawright-labs/broken-link-checker").call(run_input={"startUrls": ["https://example.com"], "maxPagesPerSite": 100}) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(): print(item["status"], item["url"], item["firstFoundOn"]) ``` #### JavaScript / Node.js ```javascript import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client'; const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '' }); const run = await client.actor('datawright-labs/broken-link-checker').call({ startUrls: ['https://example.com'], maxPagesPerSite: 100 }); const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems(); console.log(items); ``` #### cURL (run and get results in one request) ```bash curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/datawright-labs~broken-link-checker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"startUrls": ["https://example.com"], "maxPagesPerSite": 100}' ``` Results can also go straight to **Google Sheets, Slack, Make, Zapier, n8n or a webhook** via Apify integrations, and you can run it on a **Schedule** (e.g. every Monday) to monitor for new broken links. ### Use it from your AI agent (MCP) Your AI assistant or agent can run this Actor as a tool through [Apify's MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp), so it can run broken link checks on its own while you chat. Add this server to any MCP client that supports remote (Streamable HTTP) servers: ```json { "mcpServers": { "datawright-broken-link-checker": { "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=datawright-labs/broken-link-checker" } } } ``` On first use your browser opens to sign in to Apify (OAuth). If your client can't do OAuth, add `"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer " }` instead. The tool shows up as `datawright-labs--broken-link-checker`, with the same input fields as above, and the agent reads the results with `get-dataset-items`. Then just ask, for example: > Crawl docs.example.com, find broken links and tell me which pages I need to fix. Want several Datawright tools at once? Comma-separate them: `https://mcp.apify.com?tools=datawright-labs/broken-link-checker,datawright-labs/pagespeed-auditor`. Runs are billed per result, exactly like normal runs. ### FAQ #### How do I find broken links on my website? Enter your domain and run the Actor. It crawls your pages, tests every link, and lists each broken one with the page and anchor text where it appears. Download the list as CSV or Excel and fix the links in your CMS. #### What counts as a broken link? A link whose target returns HTTP 4xx (except 401/403/429, which are reported as `blocked`) or 5xx after retries, or that fails with a network error: DNS lookup failed (dead domain), connection refused/reset, timeout or an invalid TLS certificate. Malformed `href` values are reported too. #### Why are some links "blocked" instead of broken? Sites like LinkedIn (status 999), some CDNs and bot-protected pages refuse automated requests even though the page works in a browser. They are listed separately so you can verify them by hand instead of chasing false positives. Enabling Apify Proxy can reduce them. #### Does it check images and other assets? Yes, turn on **Check images, scripts and stylesheets** to also verify ``, `