External link checking
How outbound links are checked for 404, 410, 5xx and dead hosts, why social media links show as could not verify, and the time limit on large sites.
After the crawl, SiteAud!tLint checks the status code of every unique outbound link on the site. Broken external links send visitors to dead ends and look neglected to users and search engines alike.
How links are checked
- A HEAD request first. A 404 or 410 answer is trusted as broken; other errors are confirmed with a GET.
- Up to 24 links at a time, and at most 4 at a time per external site, so no single site is flooded.
- 8 second timeout per link. The whole check stops after 3 minutes; links not reached are marked "Not checked: time limit" and the Activity Log says how many.
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 404, 410, 5xx, unreachable host | Broken |
| 401, 403, 429, 999 | Could not verify, because many sites block automated checks |
| Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger | Could not verify, without a request, because these sites block automated checks |
Pages linking to broken external URLs are reported as links to a broken external URL. Internal broken links are reported separately as links to a broken page.
Turn it off
Untick Check external links in Settings > Crawl Settings... for faster audits, for example when you only want to check titles and meta descriptions.
Applies to SiteAud!tLint 0.3 and later. Current version 0.7.1.