Dead Link Checker
A dead link is often not a 404 at all. The domain expired, the host stopped answering, or the page was replaced by something that is technically fine and no longer what you linked to.
The dead link checker is not open yet
TagPipes is finishing continuous link monitoring, and the one-off checker follows it. We would rather this page be honest about that than show a scan box that does nothing. The form below is how to hear when it opens.
The free check that is open today is the Website Accessibility Checker: paste a URL, get a report in a few minutes, no signup.
Dead is a broader category than broken
In everyday use the words are interchangeable, and for a link on your own site they usually are. The distinction starts to matter for outbound links, where the failure modes are stranger and a plain 404 is one of the less common ones.
A page can disappear and still return a cheerful 200. A domain can expire and be bought by somebody selling something unrelated, so your link now works perfectly and recommends a casino. A host can stop answering entirely, which is not a status code at all but a timeout. A site can move behind a paywall, or to a country you cannot reach, or be replaced by a placeholder from its registrar.
That is what link rot means: not one failure, but the slow accumulation of every possible way the other end of a link can stop being what it was. It happens to every site, it has nothing to do with the quality of your work, and it is invisible until somebody looks.
The ways a link actually dies
What a checker sees, and what is really going on.
| Failure | What a checker sees | What has happened | Can a tool catch it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deleted page | 404 or 410 | The page was removed and the site says so honestly | Yes, reliably |
| Soft 404 | 200 OK | The page is gone, but the site serves a friendly not-found page with a success code | Only by comparing the page against a known missing URL. Most tools do not |
| Expired domain | 200 OK, or a parked page | Somebody else owns the domain now. Your link works and goes somewhere you did not intend | Not by status code. This is the failure that most needs a human eye |
| Dead host | Timeout, or a DNS failure | The server is gone. There is no answer to interpret | Yes, but it takes longer and can be confused with a slow server |
| Moved without a redirect | 404 | The content still exists, at a new address nobody told you about | Yes as a failure, no as a fix. Finding the new home is manual |
| Behind a wall | 401, 403 or a paywall page | The content is there and you can no longer reach it. Neither can your readers | Partly. A paywall often returns 200 |
Notice how many of these return a success code. A checker that only looks for 4xx and 5xx finds the honest failures and misses the ones that matter most for outbound links.
Why outbound links rot faster than you expect
None of this is under your control, which is exactly why it needs a schedule rather than an intention.
1. You linked to what was interesting, not what was stable
Useful links go to blog posts, announcements, documentation and side projects. Those are precisely the things that get restructured, abandoned or taken down. Links to stable institutional pages rot slowly; links to the good stuff rot quickly.
2. Nothing tells you when it happens
When one of your own pages breaks, somebody eventually complains. When a page you linked to five years ago breaks, nobody anywhere is in a position to notice. The only signal is a check.
3. It compounds with the age of the page
Every year a page exists, a few more of its outbound links die. An archive of a hundred old posts is not a hundred small problems, it is a slowly growing one that never triggers an alarm.
4. The fix is cheap only if you find it early
A recently dead link often has an obvious replacement: the content moved, and the new address is findable. A link that died four years ago frequently has nothing to replace it with at all.
What to do with a dead outbound link
Removing it is not always the right answer, and rewriting history has its own cost.
Reasonable options
- Point it at the content's new home, if you can find it
- Point it at an archived copy, when the original is genuinely gone and the reference still matters
- Replace it with a different source that makes the same point
- Remove the link and keep the sentence, when the link was decorative rather than load bearing
- Leave it, and note that it is dead, when the fact that it existed is part of the point
Things to be careful about
- An expired domain that now resolves is worse than a 404. Look at what a flagged link actually loads before assuming it is fine
- Silently editing old posts changes the record. On anything citation-like, say what you changed
- Bulk removing every dead outbound link is fast and often strips the context that made a post useful
- A link that fails one check may be a slow server. Confirm before you act on it
Automated testing does not replace a manual accessibility review.
Frequently asked questions
Tell me when the checker opens
One email when the free checker and the monitor are open to use. Nothing else, and no newsletter.
More on broken links
The same subject from the angle you came with, and the recurring version of the check.
- Broken Link CheckerWhat a link check does, what it reports, and what to fix first.
- Website Broken Link CheckerChecking a whole site: where broken links come from and how often to look.
- 404 Link Checker404, 410 and soft 404, and why a 404 list is not the whole picture.
- Broken Link MonitorThe recurring version: scan, alert on new breaks, record when they recover.
- Website Change DetectionThe technique that catches a domain quietly becoming something else.
TagPipes is the platform this will be part of.
Link monitoring is still being finished and is not in the product yet. What is in it today is tagging, measurement, consent and privacy tooling.
See what TagPipes does todayFree 14-day trial. No credit card.