Best Broken Link Checker Recommendations

[mikepetersonwi]

I'm curious as to what everyone uses to monitor sites for broken links? A Plugin? A web service? Desktop tools?

Any recommendations?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@mikepetersonwi, a lot of people use Screaming Frog. I tend to use good old BrokenLinkCheck.com. The "coverage" report in Search Console also can alert you to broken links, along with many other issues.

 

[djbaxter]

One problem (or required feature) is the selection or whitelisting of certain error types.

1. Some errors, like error 500, are often temporary.
2. Many sites are now blocking bots or automated queries which are reported in the 400 range and labelled as broken by simple link checkers.

Make sure, especially if it's a paid checker, that it can handle such variations. Otherwise it's a lot more work with false positives.