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Internal Link Checker

Paste any URL. See every internal link on that page, what it says, where it points, and what to fix.

Free, no signup, no credit card. One page per check.

Fetching the page…
Example report

What the internal link report looks like

This is a sample report for a fictional blog post, rendered from real checker output. Run the tool above on one of your own pages to get the same report for it.

72
/ 100
Internal link score

Internal link report

https://www.example.com/blog/how-to-plan-a-content-calendar

  • 15 links analysed
  • 13 internal
  • 7 in main content
  • Fetched directly
15 Links
13 Internal
2 External
8 In content
3 Navigation
4 Footer
1 Nofollow
13 Unique targets
3 Broken

What to fix first

  • Critical 3 internal links are broken (the target answered 4xx or 5xx). Fix or remove them. Links #4, #9, #14
  • Warning The anchor "content calendar template" points to 2 different pages. Pick one target or differentiate the wording. Links #7, #8
  • Warning 2 in-content internal links use a generic anchor ("click here", "read more"...). Describe the target instead. Links #6, #9
  • Warning 1 in-content internal link has no anchor text (image-only or empty). Add descriptive text or alt text. Link #10

You vs. 2.5 million internal links

Metric This page Benchmark Verdict
In-content internal linksNavigation and footer links excluded. 7 8 On par
Descriptive anchor textExact, partial or branded anchors. 57% 81% Below benchmark
Generic or empty anchors"Click here", "read more", image-only links. 43% 15% Below benchmark
Broken internal linksInternal links whose target answered 4xx or 5xx. Unverified targets are excluded. 23% 2% Below benchmark
Links placed in main contentShare of all links sitting in the article body. 53% 35% Above benchmark

Every link on the page

# Anchor text Target URL Scope Position Anchor type Rel Relevance HTTP status
1 Blog https://www.example.com/blog Internal Navigation Exact follow 1.00 200
2 Free tools https://www.example.com/tools Internal Navigation Partial follow 0.50 200
3 Pricing https://www.example.com/pricing Internal Navigation Exact follow 1.00 200
4 content audit checklist https://www.example.com/blog/content-audit-checklist Internal Content Partial follow 0.75 404
5 editorial workflow https://www.example.com/blog/editorial-workflow-tips Internal Content Partial follow 0.50 200
6 click here https://www.example.com/blog/seo-keyword-research Internal Content Generic follow 0.00 200
7 content calendar template https://www.example.com/templates/content-calendar Internal Content Partial follow 0.50 200
8 content calendar template https://www.example.com/blog/content-calendar-template Internal Content Partial follow 0.75 200
9 read more https://www.example.com/blog/repurposing-old-posts Internal Content Generic follow 0.00 404
10 (image link, no text) https://www.example.com/guides/distribution Internal Content Empty follow — 200
11 recent industry study https://searchengineland.com/content-cadence-study External Content Partial nofollow — —
12 About us https://www.example.com/about Internal Footer Partial follow 0.50 200
13 Contact https://www.example.com/contact Internal Footer Exact follow 1.00 200
14 Privacy policy https://www.example.com/legal/privacy-policy Internal Footer Partial follow 0.67 500
15 Twitter https://twitter.com/example External Footer Partial follow — —

On your own report every column is sortable and the whole table downloads as a CSV.

Check internal links on any page in seconds


  1. Paste the URL of the page you want to check — a blog post, a category page, a product page.
  2. We fetch that page the way a crawler does, and if it needs JavaScript to show its links, we render it.
  3. You get every link on the page, its anchor text, where it sits, where it points and whether the target still answers.

What the internal link analyzer looks at


  • Position — in-content links are separated from navigation, footer and sidebar links, because only the first kind really carries topical weight.
  • Anchor text — every anchor is classified as exact, partial, branded, generic, naked URL or empty.
  • Duplicate anchors — the same wording pointing at two different pages is flagged.
  • Relevance — how well the anchor describes the page it points to.
  • HTTP status — every unique internal target is probed, so broken internal links surface immediately.
  • Rel attributes — nofollow links are marked, because they do not pass link equity.

How to run an internal link audit on a page


An internal link audit answers three questions about a page: does it link out to enough relevant pages, do those links say something useful, and do they still work? Run the check above and read the report top to bottom.

Start with the issues. Broken internal links are always first — they waste crawl budget and dead-end your readers. Duplicate anchors come next: when the same phrase points at two different URLs, you are telling Google those two pages are the same thing. Generic anchors such as "click here" and empty image links are the cheapest wins on the list.

Then look at the in-content count. Navigation and footer links repeat on every page, so search engines discount them. A page with 40 links but only 2 of them inside the article is a thin page for internal linking purposes, whatever the total says.

Finish with relevance. A link from a page about content calendars to a page about invoicing is not helping anyone. The relevance column tells you how closely the anchor matches the target — the low scorers are the links worth rewriting or removing.

Repeating this page by page works, but it does not scale past a handful of URLs. That is what LinkStorm automates: it crawls every page, finds the relevant links you are missing and can add them for you.

Benchmarked against 2.5 million real internal links


Your report does not just list links, it compares them. The benchmark table is built from LinkStorm's 2.5 Million Internal Links study: How Websites Link Their Content, which analysed 2,500,000 internal links across 1,700 websites.

Contextual (main-content) internal links only — navigation, footer and sidebar links excluded.

  • 81% of contextual internal links use keyword-rich anchor text — only 15% are generic.
  • 61% of anchors are just one to three words long.
  • 28% of internal links show no similarity at all between the anchor and the target page — the single most common internal linking mistake.
  • 71% of contextual links point at pages within the first two levels of the site.

Read the full internal links study

Internal link checker FAQ


What are internal links?

Internal links are links from one page of your website to another page on the same domain. They tell search engines how your pages relate to each other and how important each page is, and they give readers a path to the next relevant page. Links pointing to another website are external links — this checker lists them too, but scores your internal linking only.

How many internal links should a page have?

There is no hard limit, but the links that matter for SEO are the ones inside your main content, not the ones repeated in the navigation and footer on every page. Aim for at least 3 in-content internal links on any page you care about; the median page in our 2.5 million internal links study has around 8. This tool counts content, navigation, footer and sidebar links separately so you can see the difference.

What makes a good internal anchor text?

A good anchor describes the page it points to, in the words a reader would use to search for it. Generic anchors such as "click here" or "read more" waste the link, and the same anchor pointing to two different pages sends a confusing signal. The checker classifies every anchor as exact, partial, branded, generic, naked URL or empty, and flags duplicates that point to different targets.

How do I find broken internal links?

Run the check and look at the HTTP status column. Every unique internal target on the page is probed directly, and anything that answers with a 4xx or a 5xx is reported as broken and listed at the top of the issues. Targets that answer nothing at all, or that rate-limit our checker, are marked "could not verify" instead of broken — a slow server is not a dead page, and we will not tell you it is. A 3xx means the link still works but goes through a redirect: worth pointing straight at the final URL, never counted as broken. You can also download the full table as a CSV and hand it to whoever maintains the page.

How is the internal link score calculated?

The score starts at 100 and loses points for the problems that actually cost you rankings: broken internal links, duplicate anchors pointing to different pages, generic or empty anchor text, low anchor-to-target relevance, and too few in-content internal links. It is a page-level score out of 100 — use it to compare a page against itself before and after a fix, not as an absolute grade.

Is this internal link checker really free?

Yes. There is no signup, no email gate and no credit card — paste a URL and read the report. Checks are rate limited per IP so the tool stays available for everyone. If you want the same analysis across every page of your site, plus link suggestions and automatic implementation, that is what the paid LinkStorm plans do.

Can it check JavaScript-rendered pages?

Yes. The checker first fetches the page directly, which is fast and covers most sites. If the HTML comes back empty or with no links — typical of a single-page app — it retries with full JavaScript rendering and analyses the rendered result instead. The report tells you which of the two was used.

Want the same checks on every page, plus the links you are missing? See LinkStorm pricing or grab the free internal link builder extension.

Get a complete picture of your internal linking.
Build relevant links. Fix internal link issues.

Try it with your website!

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