How can I find all broken links pointing to my site?

[StevenLevine]

I help manage a large website with over 20M backlinks and I want to find all of the broken ones. What would be the most efficient way to go about this besides exporting and checking each backlink's reponse code?

Thank you in advance!

[KevinBudzynski]

Have you looked into ahrefs? I know a ton of horsepower behind it, but don't know if it can handle checking 20m. Good luck!

[DonnaDuncan]

I agree with Kevin. Ahref has that capability assuming you don't run into size constraints. Here's a quick post that explains where to find it. (See https://ahrefs.com/blog/turning-broken-links-site-powerful-links-ahrefs-broken-link-checker/.)

[benesmartin]

Use ahrefs and split the crawls for the main folders of the website. Actually, consider the priorities because then you don't have to do all of the 20m. Start with the main ones and go step by step for being able to crawl the majority.

[Joe_Stoffel]

Hi Steven,

I assume many of these backlinks will be broken because pages were removed from your site without being properly redirected. If that is the case, Open Site Explorer's Link Opportunities (Link Reclamation) tool should be a big help. This will show all 404 URLs with inbound links that you can recapture be 301 redirecting. Additionally, you can look up the backlinks to each of these 404 pages and reach out to each webmaster requesting they update the URL of their link.

I've also had success exporting Top Pages reports (Moz or Majestic are my preferred tools for this), running any URL with a backlink to it through Screaming Frog and pulling 404 pages/broken links (or even 302 redirects) that way. I usually find additional opportunities that do not show up in the Link Reclamation report.

Hope this helps!

[StevenLevine]

Ha, I feel silly. I do use ahrefs, but somehow the broken backlinks tool escaped me. This is perfect, thank you!

[saurabhkumar1477]

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