Find broken and weak links
The Links view shows every link the scan found: links to other sites and links between your own pages. Use it to find broken links, the pages they sit on, and pages that get too few links.
- ways to look at your links
- 10
- ways to look at your links
- fix per dead URL, wherever it is linked
- 1
- fix per dead URL, wherever it is linked
- link score of your strongest page
- 100
- link score of your strongest page
Two kinds of link
Links out, and links within
Internal links connect your own pages. External links point to other sites. Both can break, and both are listed here.
External links
Every link to another site, grouped by site, by URL or by the page it sits on. A quick way to find links to old or dead domains.
Internal links
For each of your pages: how many links point to it (inlinks) and how many it has (outlinks), plus links that point at redirects.
Link score
Your pages ranked by the internal links they receive. The strongest scores 100. Key pages should be near the top.
Anchor text
The clickable words of every link. Words like “click here” tell search engines nothing about the page behind them.
Status codes
What each link status means, and what to do
Every link the scan follows gets a status code back. This is how the app groups them.
- 2xx · Working
The link opens the page it should.
Nothing.
- 3xx · Redirect
The link works, but sends the visitor on to another address first.
Point the link straight at the final address. One redirect is fine; a chain is not.
- 4xx · Broken
The page is gone or blocked, such as 404 Not Found or 410 Gone.
Link to the right page instead, or remove the link.
- 5xx · Server error
The other server failed to answer.
Check again later: these are often temporary. If it stays, replace the link.
- 429 · Throttled
The site asked the scan to slow down. Not counted as broken.
Nothing. It will usually answer on the next scan.
- Not checked
The link is listed but was not tested. Testing external links starts on Hobby.
Upgrade to test every link, or check the important ones by hand.
What it finds
Link problems, and how to fix them
Each dead URL counts once, however many pages link to it. A broken link in your footer is one fix, not hundreds.
- Critical
Broken internal links
Visitors land on an error page and search engines waste their visit.
How to fix: Redirect moved pages to their new address with a 301 and update the links. Remove links to deleted pages.
- Critical
Redirects with the wrong status code
A temporary redirect tells search engines the old page will come back, so they keep the wrong one.
How to fix: Use a 301 for pages that moved for good and a 302 only for short-term moves.
- Important
Redirect chains
Each extra hop slows the page and can lose some of its ranking value.
How to fix: Point the first redirect straight at the final address.
- Important
Redirect loops
Two rules send visitors back and forth forever, so the page never opens.
How to fix: Trace the redirects in your browser's developer tools and fix the two rules that undo each other.
- Important
New-tab links without noopener
A link with
target="_blank"can let the other site control your tab.How to fix: Add
rel="noopener noreferrer"to every link that opens in a new tab. - Standard
Broken external links
Links to dead pages on other sites look neglected to visitors.
How to fix: For a 404 or 410, replace or remove the link. Recheck a 5xx later before changing anything.
- Standard
Internal links point at a redirect
Every click takes an extra hop that you control and could remove.
How to fix: Update the link to the page's final address.
- Standard
Internal links marked nofollow
It tells search engines to ignore the link, so the page it points to gets less credit.
How to fix: Keep nofollow only on links such as cart, login or filters, not on menus or related content.
Inside the app
Find the link, then the page it is on
Outgoing links grouped by the site they point to, with broken URLs and redirect chains counted above.
Click around: it is a working copy of the screen, filled with our test site's data.
Your first visit
Fix your links in four steps
- 1
Open By site and check the Broken column.
- 2
Switch to Every placement and click Broken to see which pages hold dead links.
- 3
Open Internal and click Links to redirects. Point those links at the final address.
- 4
Open Link score and check your key pages are near the top.
The checks behind this screen
Check categories shown here
These groups of checks feed the numbers on this screen. Each one is explained on the score page.
Link Integrity
26 checksThese checks find broken links, server errors, redirect chains and loops, pages that no other page links to and pages that link nowhere. They also flag links search engines cannot follow, links with no text, links to localhost or staging addresses and links to a #section that does not exist. Testing whether external links still work, or redirect, starts on Hobby.
Delivery & Trust
37 checksThese checks cover HTTPS, SSL certificates (including ones about to expire), outdated TLS versions, security headers, mixed content, compression, render-blocking scripts and page size. On Hobby and above, once you add your own Google API key, they also flag poor Core Web Vitals (Google's measures of loading speed and visual stability) and Lighthouse findings such as unused code, oversized images and short cache times.
Crawlability
18 checksYour robots.txt file and your sitemaps tell search engines which pages to visit. These checks read both, and they flag sitemaps that list broken, blocked or duplicate pages, CSS and JavaScript files that robots.txt blocks, and pages that failed to load during the scan.
What this screen is for
The results it is part of
A screen is where you look. These are the things PixyScan does for your site that you see here.
FAQ
Common questions about this feature
Why do my links say “not checked” on Free?
To test a link, PixyScan must send a request to it. Those requests start on Hobby (50,000 a month). On Free, links to other sites are listed but not tested. Links between your own pages still show a status.
Does this feature change my health score?
No, this feature only shows what the scan found. But link problems such as broken internal links and redirect chains are also scored checks in the Issues view.
Can it show who links to my site?
No. PixyScan only sees links on your own site, so it has no backlink data. Use a backlink tool or Google Search Console for that.
Can I export the links?
Yes, from Hobby up. Export downloads the list you are looking at, so pick your tab and filters first.
Continue the product tour
Previous and next features
Features follow the order of the app’s menu. See the full list to jump to any of them.
See what is wrong with your site
Add your site and get your score, your to-do list and a fix guide for every problem. Free for one site and 500 pages a month, with no time limit.
Nothing to install · Cancel any time