How to Find Broken Links at Scale

Checking a big site by hand is impossible. Here is how to find every broken link systematically.

September 3, 2026 · 3 min read

Manual checking does not scale

On any real site, clicking every link to test it is impractical. Links break faster than you can check them by hand, which is why finding them needs to be automated.

Crawl the whole site

A systematic crawl follows every link on your site and reports which ones fail. That gives you a complete picture instead of the handful of broken links you happen to notice.

Know where each break is

A useful report does not just list broken targets. It tells you which pages link to them, so you can go straight to the fix instead of hunting for it.

Make it continuous

A one time crawl catches today's problems. Continuous monitoring catches the ones that appear next week, which is where most breakage actually comes from.

Key takeaways

Checking links by hand does not scale
Crawl the whole site for a complete picture
A good report shows the source page of each break
Continuous checking catches new breakage over time

Written by

Julien Jimenez

Julien Jimenez is an independent software builder based in Paris. He designs, ships, and operates focused SaaS products for small businesses and independent professionals. Read the full author page.