Home Page : Link Checkers

Link Checkers

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Introduction
At a glance comparison
Link checkers

Introduction

At its simplest, a link checker checks all the links on a page or on a website to confirm that there are no broken links. A broken link is one which does not point to a valid web page. Broken links can also be referred to as dead links. This is an example of a broken link: I'm a broken link.

Broken links can arise for a number of reasons. On a poorly managed site, broken links might arise simply because the link is defined incorrectly. A common mistake is to link to a local file (e.g. the html <a href="file://c$/MyWebs/index.htm" ...) instead of a link to a file on the website (e.g. the html <a href="www.cryer.co.uk/index.htm" ...) - the first is a link to a local file whereas the second is a valid link to a page on a website. Possibly the most common source of broken links is when a link is to a page on another site, if the other site does a redesign and moves or deletes the page that you are linking to then you have a broken link. Broken links are frustrating to visitors and therefore any conscientious webmaster should strive to catch them.

Whilst for an individual page it might be feasible to check every link my hand, this would be very time consuming and would be impractical for most websites. The obvious solution is to employ link checking tools, to check all the links automatically.

This review compares a number of link checking tools against a standard set of criteria so you can consider which ones are most likely to be suitable.

At a glance comparison

The following table provides an "at-a-glance" comparison of link checker tools (click on the tools for a more detailed review):

Link Checkers	Program type	Scope	Images	In-Page Links	Check locally	JavaScript Links	Type
SortSite	Exe	Site					Commercial, 30 day trial
DeepTrawl	Exe	Site					Commercial, 30 day trial
Link Checker Pro	Exe	Site					Commercial, 30 day trial
Xenu's Link Sleuth	Exe	Site					Free
InfoLink Link Checker	Exe	Site					Free
Dead-Links	On-line	Site					Free
REL Link Checker Lite	Exe	Site					Free
404 error page	N/A	Site					Free
Google Sitemaps	N/A	Site					Free
1-hit.com Bad Link Checker	On-line	Page					Free
FWB Broken Link Checker	On-line	Page					Free
W3C Link Checker	On-line	Page					Free
Indiabook.com Free Link Checker	On-line	Page					Free
LinkChecker by 2bone	On-line	Page					Free
LinkTraX	On-line	Page					Free
Link Checkers	Program type	Scope	Images	In-Page Links	Check locally	JavaScript Links	Type

where:-

Program type

Indicates whether the link checker must be downloaded and run ("Exe") or whether it can be run by connecting to a website ("on-line").

Scope

Whether the link checker checks an individual page ('page') or an entire web site ('site').

Images

Whether the link checker checks for missing images. A missing image is an image that simply isn't there. Typically these will appear in a browser as a box like this: "

" (quotes added)

Check locally

Whether the link checker can examine a website which is resident locally on disk, or whether the web site must be on the web to be checked.

In-Page Links

Whether the link checker checks links on a page to bookmarks within that same page. This is an example of a local link: "<a href="#Top">Top</a>" and this is an example of a broken local link "<a href="#Broken">Broken</a>". One significant difference between a broken link and a broken in-page link is that the user won't see an error if an in-page link is broken - clicking on the link just won't do anything. In-page links are also known as "local links" and "fragments".

JavaScript Links

Whether the link checker checks links generated using JavaScript. For example:

<script type="test/javascript">
document.write('<a href="broken_' + 'script.htm">broken JavaScript link</a>');
</script>

which shows as:.

Type

Whether the link checker is free (or free with certain limitations, such as for private use only) or commercial meaning that you will need to purchase it. Commercial link checkers normally provide a functioning demo or a trail period. Where the trial period is known it is included in the table.

Link Checkers

Dead-Links.com

Site can be viewed in English (the default) or Spanish. The dead-links.com checker acts like a site checker, in that it follows links to other pages on the website. (There is a limit on the number of pages it will follow.) The link checker can take a while to complete (which is true of any link checker) but for most of this it appends information to the browser window.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed on 22nd March 2005.
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Run from:	www.dead-links.com
Scope:	Site. It will start on the page you give it and will then check each of the (on-site) pages that that page links to. According to the dead-links FAQ it will check up to 25 pages or 150 pages if it finds a link back to dead-links.com, but in testing it checked 250 pages before stopping.
Check locally:	Page must be publicly accessible on the internet to be checked.
In page links:	The logic only tests links which point to other pages, not to bookmarks within the same page.
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. Single page only.
Catches redirections:	It will report on which pages (that you link to) redirect to somewhere else.
Problems:	On the final Report, it just lists the broken links, not the pages that contained those links. All in all, a good checker.

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DeepTrawl

A full review of DeepTrawl is pending. The following information has been provided by the developers of DeepTrawl:

Version reviewed:	Not applicable, full review pending.
Program type:	Executable.
Download from:	www.deeptrawl.com/download.htm
Scope:	Site
Check locally:
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Commercial, 30 day trial.
Can limit scope:
Catches redirections:
Problems:	A full review is scheduled on this product. Please check back later.

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FWR - Broken Link Checker

Free-Webmaster-Resources broken link checker. Easy to use page checker, but let down by its slowness.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed on 22nd March 2005.
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Run from:	http://www.f-w-r.com/badlinkchecker.php
Scope:	Page
Check locally:	Page must be publicly accessible on the internet to be checked.
In page links:	The logic only tests links which point to pages external to the website.
JavaScript links:	- however it does pick out "<a href=..." from any JavaScript and checks links on that basis. It identified the incorrect JavaScript link from the test cases used.
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. Single page only.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	Very slow. You only get to see any of the results when it finishes, this would not be a problem if it were quicker but it is likely that some visitors will assume its not working because of how slow it is. It reports as "Found" links which are broken, so you need to be aware that "Found" refers to a broken link.

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Google Sitemaps

Google Sitemaps is not a link checker, but it does show some of the errors that Google's web-bot has found when trawling your site - and that is the reason why it is included here in this review of link checkers. Google's web-bot is the search engine's robot which automatically trawls the web (and your website) indexing your pages so it can return them in response to searches. During this process it may encounter errors when requesting pages from your website.

You can only use Google Sitemaps if you are the webmaster for a site. It cannot be used to show information about someone else's website. To use it your site must be available on the internet.

You need to register to use the service. As part of this process (which is free) you will need to place an empty file on your website as a means of proving that you are the webmaster for the site.

Once registered, you can view stats for your site, and the errors page will show up to ten errors from your site together with the time they were recorded. Typically these errors will be broken links. It does not tell you where these links came from, so you have to work that out for yourself. An advantage of using Google Sitemaps for this purpose is that it shows errors that might adversely affect your search engine ranking.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed November 2005.
Program type:	On line. Reports on last ten errors on your site as encountered by google-bot. These may be days old.
Run from:	Go to www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps to register or login.
Scope:	Site
Check locally:	Site must be publicly accessible on the internet.
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. No control over which pages errors are reported for.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	It must be appreciated the Google sitemaps are not a link checker. The fact that they provide help in this area is coincidental. Only up to sixteen errors are reported. Not updated regularly. So, its worth visiting once or twice a week. No control over which pages the errors are reported for. No indication of whether an error is caused by a broken link on your site or a broken link from some other site.

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LinkTraX from ClientWorX

LinkTrax is on on-line web page checker that allows you to check any web page up to 5 times each month.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed on 3rd November 2004.
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Run from:	http://clientworx.com/LinkTraX/TestLink.shtml
Scope:	Page
Check locally:	Page must be publicly accessible on the internet to be checked.
In page links:	The logic only tests links which point to pages external to the website.
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. Single page only.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	Not reporting on links internal to the website, means that it will miss some obvious broken links. (It may be that they are planning to provide a paid service that will do this, although there is no evidence of this on their website.)

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Indiabook.com Free Link Checker

Web site offering a simple one page check. A nice feature is that it lists each link found.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed on 25-Apr-04.
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Run from:	www.indiabook.com/webmaster/link.html
Scope:	Page
Check locally:	Page must be publicly accessible on the internet to be checked.
In page links:	The report it generates lists in-page links, but this is misleading since it doesn't check them - the known broken in-page links on this page were listed as "OK"
JavaScript links:
Images:	The report it generates lists images, but this is misleading since it doesn't check them - the known missing/broken image on this page was listed as "OK"
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. Single page only.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	When reviewed it listed all the links on the page, but failed to pick up which of those were broken. It gave this page a clean bill of health - despite there being a number of intentionally broken links. Conclusion: This one is best avoided.

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InfoLink Link Checker

InfoLink Link Checker has been discontinued, meaning that no further development will take place however it is still available for download and its now free despite parts of the website implying otherwise.

Version reviewed:	1.9d
Program type:	Executable, must be run locally.
Download from:	www.biggbyte.com/infolink/download/download.html
Scope:	Site
Check locally:
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free. Much of the website implies that it is commercial, but this shows its history. It was commercial before it was discontinued.
Can limit scope:
Catches redirections:
Problems:	No longer being developed. The interface is a little daunting and it takes a bit of time to become familiar with it. The checker and the report viewer are separate, which doesn't give a good feeling of integration. Possibly a useful techies tool, but not a very friendly webmaster's tool.

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Link Checker Pro

Link Checker Pro is an essential utility for anybody wishing to check internal and external links within their Internet site. Link Checker Pro has many customisable settings and allows reports of link data to be saved in HTML format that may be easily viewed in any Internet browser.

Extract from the link-checker-pro website:-

"Link Checker Pro is the leading solution for website analysis and the detection of broken and other problem links. Link Checker Pro combines powerful features and an easy to use interface and is robust enough to deal with corporate websites containing 100,000 links or more."

Version reviewed:	3.1.33
Program type:	Executable, must be run locally.
Download from:	www.link-checker-pro.com
Scope:	Site
Check locally:	- but it is not apparent how to make it check a single page.
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Commercial.
Trial period:	There is a free 30 day demo available for download from their website.
Can limit scope:
Catches redirections:
Problems:	When testing at one point it came up with a message box saying "This page has an unspecified potential security flaw. Would you like to continue?" Does not catch all pop-ups generated by the pages it is scanning. When testing at one point it came up with a message box saying "An action cannot be completed because a component (HTTPCheck) is not responding." Can be fussy about URLs, for example it would check "http://www.postgrad_resources.btinternet.co.uk" but not "www.postgrad_resources.btinternet.co.uk".

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LinkChecker by 2bone

Free online link checker. Well presented and simple interface.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed on 16^th July 2004.
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Run from:	www.2bone.com/links/linkchecker.shtml
Scope:	Page
Check locally:	Page must be publicly accessible on the internet to be checked.
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free.
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. Single page only.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	When reviewed, it failed to pick up any of the broken links on this page. Presumably it will find simple broken links, but nothing more complex.

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REL Link Checker Lite

Extract from the REL Software: "REL Link Checker Lite is a free easy-to-use link checker tool to help you maintain the accuracy of links on your web site. The program will help you easily locate broken links and links containing syntactic errors."

The Lite version has a limit of up to 500 links, which should be adequate for small web sites. If you need to check more links then you will need to use their commercial offering "Web Link Validator". It has a smart looking interface and is relatively straight forward to master.

Version reviewed:	1.0
Program type:	Executable, must be run locally.
Download from:	www.relsoftware.com
Scope:	Site
Check locally:
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	- Can set to scan the entire site or just for those pages within a specified path.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	If the site has a general handler for missing pages (i.e. a 404 error page) then this link checker fails to detect that the link is broken - it just regards it as pointing to the 404 error page. Has problems with some types of links. It appeared to incorrectly interpret a link `<a href="www.mysite.com">` when scanning www.mysite.com as "`www.mysite.com/www.mysite.com`". Presumably a link `<a href="http://www.mysite.com">` would be fine.

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SortSite

Version reviewed:	2.02
Program type:	Executable
Download from:	www.powermapper.com/download
Scope:	Site.
Check locally:
In page links:
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Commercial, 30 day trial.
Can limit scope:	yes, depth limit and via wildcards e.g. http://www.site.com/keepout
Catches redirections:	follows redirections but does not report them.
Notes:	also checks links in CSS (missing background images, @import statements etc) and Flash. in addition to checking links it also checks for - server configuration issues like mis-configured mime types - accessibility (WCAG 1.0 and Section 508) - whole site HTML/XHTML validation - browser compatibility issues - Google/Yahoo/MSN search engine guideline violations - and a bunch of other stuff.

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W3C Link Checker

The W3C Link Checker is an on-line checker that is only available on-line. It cannot be downloaded, but must be run from the W3C web site. It is a "no-frills" link checker, but does a good job.

Version reviewed:	3.6.2.3
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Run from:	http://validator.w3.org/checklink
Scope:	Site. The default setting is just to check a single page, but ticking the option "check linked documents recursively" will allow it to check multiple pages.
Check locally:	- pages must be published and available online before they can be checked.
In page links:	- it refers to these as "broken fragments".
JavaScript links:
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	You can limit the depth to which it scans.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	Incorrectly displays a link `<a href="www.mysite.com">` when scanning www.mysite.com as "`www.mysite.com/www.mysite.com`", but this is only cosmetic because it does check the correct link. It fails to treat a link to '#Top' as correct (top-of-page), and flags this up as a "broken fragment"

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Xenu's Link Sleuth

Xenu's Link Sleuth is a very popular link checker because it checks all the pages on a site and is free. The interface is simple but straight forward. When working it shows both broken and non-broken links, highlighting broken links in red so they are easy to spot. The final report it generates shows you which pages on the site contain the broken link.

Version reviewed:	1.2e
Program type:	Executable, must be run locally.
Download from:	http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
Scope:	Site
Check locally:
In page links:
JavaScript links:	It will find links which appear as simple text within JavaScript, but does not find links which are constructed by JavaScript.
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	You can specify not to check URLs that have a given start. This allows you to exclude parts of your website. You can also specify how deep you want it to go into a web site.
Catches redirections:	The default setting is not to flag these as errors.
Problems:	Xenu's Link Sleuth does have problems with some types of links. Testing version 1.2e it would incorrectly interpret a link `<a href="www.mysite.com">` when scanning www.mysite.com as "`www.mysite.com/www.mysite.com`". Presumably a link `<a href="http://www.mysite.com">` would be fine. When checking part of a website you need to specify the full page URL, for example it fails to find "`www.cryer.co.uk/brian`" but will succeed if given "`www.cryer.co.uk/brian/index.htm`". It therefore reports some links as broken when they are not.

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1-hit.com Bad Link Checker

A very nice single page link checker. It generates a lengthy, but very clear, report showing all the links on a page and which of those are ok and which are broken. This report includes JavaScript and style sheet files that the page might use as well as any image files referenced. All in all, a very impressive page checker.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable. Last reviewed on 6^th May 2004.
Program type:	On-line link checker, must be connected to the internet.
Available at:	www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.broken-link-finder.htm
Scope:	Page. Will only check a single page.
Check locally:	Page can be publicly accessible on the internet or a local file can be uploaded.
In page links:
JavaScript links:	It might find links which appear as simple text within JavaScript but this has not been confirmed.
Images:
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable. Single page only.
Catches redirections:
Problems:	If your site has a custom "404 error page", then a broken page link will be flagged as a redirection rather than missing, but this is cosmetic because it still catches that the link isn't right.

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404 error page

A 404 error page is a page displayed to a surfer when a page does not exist. It is not a link checker, but can be used to catch bad links after a surfer has stumbled across one. It could therefore be classified as a passive link checker - finding broken links after the event.

A webmaster can produce a custom 404 error page (for an example see www.cryer.co.uk/resources/javascript/html3.htm) and provided it is possible to track where the visitor came from then this tracking information shows the pages on which the broken links are located - either on the local website or another site. This is a passive link checking option because it relies on surfers finding the broken links, but it has the advantage of being able to catch broken links on other people's web sites.

Version reviewed:	Not applicable.
Program type:	Not applicable.
Download from:	Not applicable.
Scope:	Site
Check locally:
In page links:
JavaScript links:	- but only after a surfer has clicked on the link.
Images:	- missing images do not generate 404 errors.
Type:	Free
Can limit scope:	Not applicable
Catches redirections:	Not applicable
Problems:	This method finds broken links only after a visitor has tried the link. It can only be employed by the webmaster of a site. It is not always obvious from the page which link is the broken one. Requires a 404 error page. Requires that the 404 error page can be tracked and the referring page logged. Logs must be regularly reviewed to catch broken links.
Unique features:	Allows you (the webmaster) to identify broken links on other people's web sites that point to yours.

An alternative approach is to examine the server's error log, if that is accessible.

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If you know of any other link checker tools that you would like to see listed on this page or wish to report any errors on this page then please e-mail: feedback@cryer.co.uk.