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Broken URL Checker: Find Dead Links Across 75,000 URLs

Cloud-based scan with residential proxy rotation. Surfaces 404s, soft 404s, redirect chains, and timeouts. Free for the first 300 URLs, no signup.

What the scan catches

Hard 404s and 410s

Pages the server says are gone. The most common form of broken link and the easiest to find.

Soft 404s

Pages that return HTTP 200 but render a “not found” template. Body content is analyzed to flag them separately.

Broken redirect chains

URLs that 301 to a 404, or chain through 3+ hops to a dead end. Returns every hop so you can rewrite the redirect rule directly.

SSL and DNS errors

Expired certificates, hostname mismatches, dead nameservers, and connection-refused failures: all reported as distinct error types, not lumped into “broken.”

Timeouts

URLs that exceed 30 seconds to first byte. Often surface partial outages or origin overloads that intermittent users miss.

5xx server errors

500, 502, 503, 504 marked separately from 4xx. A 503 on the first attempt with a clean retry usually means transient load, not a dead URL.

How the scan runs

  1. Submit the list. Paste up to 75,000 URLs, drop a CSV (auto-detects which column is URLs), or POST a JSON array through the API. CSV exports from Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, and Google Search Console drop in directly.
  2. Cloud workers fan out. The job splits across distributed workers pulling from a rotating residential proxy pool. Target servers see traffic from many IPs rather than one hammering source, so rate limits stay polite and 429/403 false positives stay rare.
  3. Per-domain throttling. Each target domain capped at ~20 requests/minute. A 5,000-URL list all on one domain still finishes without tripping rate limits.
  4. Email on completion. Close the tab. The completion email links straight to the results dashboard and CSV export.

Where broken URLs come from

  • Deleted pages without redirects: the single most common source. Editorial deletes a low-traffic post, never sets a 301.
  • Slug changes during CMS edits: changing a URL slug creates a redirect in some CMSes, a broken link in others. Verify after every restructure.
  • External link rot: third-party sites change URLs or shut down domains. Beyond your control, but the linking pages on your site are not, and you can update or remove them.
  • Typos in hand-edited links: rare on small sites, statistically inevitable on sites with hundreds of editors.
  • Expired campaign domains: marketing campaigns spin up landing pages on temporary subdomains, then expire them without cleaning up the inbound links.
  • Failed deploys: a deploy rolls back partial routes; some URLs work, some 500. Worth scanning the full sitemap immediately after every major release.

Use cases this is built for

  • SEO audit: Sitebulb or Screaming Frog gives you the crawl list; this gives you the live status. Run monthly to catch rot before it impacts rankings.
  • Backlink reclamation: dump 5,000 backlinks from Ahrefs, surface the 87 that 404, send outreach. Detailed on the Backlink Audit Tool page.
  • Site migration QA: verify old URLs redirect correctly to new pages. Diff the redirect targets against the migration plan.
  • Agency client audits: one combined list per month, slice the CSV by client column. Detailed on the URL Checker for SEO Agencies page.
  • Large lists at scale: validation runs in the 10,000–75,000 range belong on the Large URL List Validator.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly counts as a broken URL?

Any URL that fails to resolve to a working page: HTTP 404 (not found), 410 (gone), 5xx (server errors), DNS failures, connection timeouts, and SSL/TLS errors. Soft 404s (pages that return 200 but show "not found" content) are also detected, since they look healthy to a basic status-code check but produce the same user experience as a real 404.

How is this different from a free browser extension?

Browser extensions like Check My Links scan one page at a time using your IP. They are fine for spot-checking a single blog post before publishing. For 500+ URLs (especially external links), they hit rate limits and return false 429/403 errors that look like broken links. The cloud checker rotates through residential proxies, so external sites do not see one IP making thousands of requests.

Will checking my outbound links get my site flagged?

No. The checker connects from rotating cloud IPs, not your origin. Your own site is never the source of the requests, so target servers cannot trace check traffic back to you or your domain.

How fast does a typical scan run?

About 1,000 URLs per minute on a diversified list. Lists concentrated on a single domain are slower because of per-domain throttling (20 requests/minute, to avoid being mistaken for an abusive scraper). A 10,000-URL audit usually finishes in 10 to 15 minutes.

Can I export the results?

Yes. CSV export with one row per URL: original URL, final URL, every redirect hop in order, HTTP status code, response time, content-type, and soft-404 flag. JSON export available via the API.

How much does it cost?

First 300 URLs are free with no signup. After that, pay-as-you-go at $9.99 per 10,000 URLs, or $9/month for the Starter plan (15,000 URLs/month). No annual contracts, no expiration on credits.

Related reading

First 300 URLs are free. No signup, no credit card.

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