‍‍‍Introduction to Internal Link Checkers

When it comes to website optimization and improving search engine rankings, internal linking plays a crucial role. Internal links connect different pages within your website, helping search engines understand your site's structure and content hierarchy. However, managing internal links can be a challenging task, especially for large websites with numerous pages. To simplify this process and ensure your internal links are functioning properly, using an internal link checker tool is essential. In this blog post, we will explore the 9 best internal link checker tools available today.

What are Internal Link Checkers? 

Internal link checkers are tools designed to analyze and optimize the internal linking structure of your website. These tools help identify broken links, orphaned pages, and opportunities for improving the overall user experience and search engine rankings.

The Importance of Internal Linking for SEO

Internal linking refers to the process of linking one page of a website to another page within the same website. It plays a crucial role in improving the website's performance, rankings, and user experience.

Enhances Website Navigation

Internal links help improve website navigation by guiding users through relevant content and making the website easier to browse. By providing a logical and structured hierarchy, internal links ensure that users can find the information they are looking for, ultimately leading to a better user experience.

Improves Page Authority

Internal linking helps distribute link equity, also known as "link juice," throughout a website. By linking to relevant pages, internal links can help improve the visibility and authority of individual pages in search engine results. This can lead to higher rankings and increased traffic to the linked pages.

Boosts Indexing and Crawling Efficiency

Internal linking plays a vital role in helping search engines crawl and index a website efficiently. By providing a clear hierarchy and structure, internal links enable search engines to understand the relationship between different pages on a website. This improved crawlability can lead to better search engine rankings and overall website performance.

Top Internal Link Checker Tools

1. Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to monitor your website's performance, submit sitemaps, and analyze internal links. With GSC, you can view the total number of internal links on your site, identify broken links, and fix them. 

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Pros

• You can see which pages have the most internal links pointing to them, which can indicate their importance and relevance.
• You can identify and fix broken internal links, which can improve your site’s usability and crawlability.
• You can optimize your internal link structure by adding, removing, or changing internal links to improve your site’s relevance, authority, and ranking.

Cons

• Only shows up to 1,000 rows of data, which might not be enough for larger or more linked-to sites.
• Does not show the anchor text or the context of the internal links, which can affect their effectiveness and relevance.
• Does not provide any suggestions or recommendations on how to improve your internal link structure, which requires manual analysis and action.

Pricing

It’s a free tool. 

2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a powerful crawling tool that can help you analyze internal links on your website. It checks both internal and external links, identifies broken links and errors, and provides valuable insights on improving your site's overall performance. 

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Pros

• It can crawl large and complex websites quickly and efficiently and provide detailed and accurate data on various SEO elements.
• It can identify and fix common SEO issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, missing metadata, canonicalization errors, robot directives, and more.
• It can integrate with other tools and platforms, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Majestic, Ahrefs and Moz, to provide additional insights and metrics.

Cons

• It has a steep learning curve for beginners or non-technical users, as it requires some knowledge and skills to use it effectively.
• It can consume a lot of memory and CPU resources, especially when crawling large or complex websites, which can affect your computer’s performance.
• It does not provide any suggestions or recommendations on how to improve your SEO strategy or optimize your site, which requires manual analysis and action.

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Pricing

• It has a free version that allows you to crawl upto 500 URLs 
• The paid version is for  £199 per year for a license that allows you to crawl unlimited URLs 

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3. Ahrefs Site Audit

Ahrefs Site Audit is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers a comprehensive site audit feature, including internal link analysis. With Ahrefs, you can check internal links, identify broken links, and receive suggestions for internal linking opportunities. 

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 Pros

• It is powered by Ahrefs’ industry-leading backlink database, which is updated every 15 minutes and covers over 27 trillion internal backlinks from over 216 million domains.
• It is cloud-based, which means you don’t need to install anything on your computer or pay for processing costs. You can also access your data anytime and anywhere.
• It allows you to schedule daily, weekly, or monthly crawls for your projects and track your progress over time.
• It integrates with Ahrefs’ other tools, such as Site Explorer and Data Explorer, which provide you with more SEO metrics and insights for each page.

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Cons

• It is not a free tool. You need to verify ownership of your website to use Site Audit for free, but you can only crawl up to 10,000 pages per project. To crawl more pages or access more features, you need to subscribe to one of Ahrefs’ paid plans.
• It does not provide any suggestions or recommendations on how to improve your internal linking strategy. You need to analyze the data yourself and decide what actions to take.
• It does not execute JavaScript while crawling, which means it may not detect some dynamic or lazy-loaded links on your site. 

Pricing

• The Lite plan costs $99 per month or $82 per month if paid annually. It allows you to crawl up to 10,000 pages per project and 5 projects in total1.
• The Standard plan costs $199 per month or $166 per month if paid annually. It allows you to crawl up to 500,000 pages per project and 10 projects in total. It also includes more features such as JavaScript rendering and Data Explorer1.
• The Advanced plan costs $399 per month or $332 per month if paid annually. It allows you to crawl up to 1.25 million pages per project and 25 projects in total. It also includes more features such as mobile-friendly testing and custom issue tracking1.
• The Enterprise plan costs $999 per month or $832 per month if paid annually. It allows you to crawl up to 2.5 million pages per project and 100 projects in total. It also includes more features such as white-label reports and priority support1.
• You can also take a 7-day trial of Ahrefs Site Explorer for just $7, which includes access to Site Audit and other tools. 

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4. SEMrush Site Audit

SEMrush is another popular SEO tool that offers a site audit feature for analyzing internal links. With SEMrush, you can check both internal and external links, find broken links, and receive insights on your site's overall performance.

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Pros

• It uses the Internal LinkRank (ILR) metric to measure the importance of your website pages in terms of link architecture.
• It provides a prioritized list of issues and recommendations on how to fix them.
• It shows you the crawl depth, internal link distribution, and link types of your pages.
• It allows you to export your list of issues to CSV or XLSX, customize your own white-label PDFs, and set up regular reporting.
• It integrates with other SEMrush tools such as Traffic Analytics and Market Explorer.

Cons

• It has a limit on the number of pages you can crawl per audit and per month depending on your plan.
• It does not support JavaScript rendering or dynamic websites.
• It may take some time to crawl your website depending on the number of pages, external links, images, and your crawl-delay setting.
• It requires a subscription to access the full features and benefits of the tool.

Pricing

• The Pro plan costs $119.95 per month or $99.95 per month when billed annually. It allows you to crawl up to 100,000 pages per month and 20,000 pages per audit.
• The Guru plan costs $229.95 per month or $191.62 per month when billed annually. It allows you to crawl up to 300,000 pages per month and 20,000 pages per audit. It also includes the Content Marketing Platform and historical data.
• The Business plan costs $449.95 per month or $374.95 per month when billed annually. It allows you to crawl up to 1 million pages per month and 100,000 pages per audit. It also includes Share of Voice, API access, PLA analytics, and free migration from third-party tools.
• The Enterprise plan is a custom solution for large agencies and enterprises. You need to contact SEMrush for a quote.
• SEMrush offers a free version with limited features.

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5. Link Whisper

Link Whisper is a WordPress plugin that helps you find and add internal links based on your chosen keywords. It also identifies broken links and orphan pages on your site, providing simple reporting and more. 

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Pros

• It uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant internal links based on your content.
• It shows you the number of internal and external links for each post and page on your website.
• It automatically monitors and checks for broken links and notifies you whenever a broken link is found.
• It lets you fix broken links with one click from the Error Report dashboard.
• It integrates with other popular plugins such as Yoast SEO, Rank Math, Elementor, etc.

Cons

• It does not support JavaScript rendering or dynamic websites.
• It may slow down your website if you have a lot of posts and pages.
• It does not have a free version or a trial period.

Pricing

• The Single Site plan costs $77 per year and allows you to use the plugin on one website.
• The 3 Sites plan costs $107 per year and allows you to use the plugin on up to three websites.
• The 10 Sites plan costs $157 per year and allows you to use the plugin on up to ten websites.
• All plans include unlimited internal link suggestions, broken link checker, orphaned content finder, auto-linking feature, and one year of updates and support.

6. Internal Link Juicer

Internal Link Juicer is a WordPress plugin that helps you create smart internal links for your website. It uses an advanced algorithm to automatically link your posts and pages based on your keywords and settings.

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Pros

• It uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant internal links based on your content and keywords.
• It allows you to customize your link output, linking behavior, and link attributes.
• It supports linking from and to posts, pages, categories, tags, and custom post types.
• It integrates with Yoast SEO and Rank Math to import focus keywords.
• It has a high-performance index structure that ensures fast rendering of your pages.

Cons

•  It does not support JavaScript rendering or dynamic websites.
• It does not have a broken link checker feature.
• It does not have a free version or a trial period.

Pricing

•  The Basic plan is free and allows you to use the plugin on one website. It includes unlimited internal link suggestions, orphaned content finder, auto-linking feature, and one year of updates and support.
• The Pro plan costs $69 per year and allows you to use the plugin on unlimited websites. It includes all the Basic features plus enabled taxonomies, enabled custom fields, custom link targets, auto keyword import, and professional statistics.

7. WordPress Broken Link Checker

WordPress Broken Link Checker is a free plugin that scans your WordPress website for broken links. Once installed and activated, the plugin will start scanning your site and provide a report with the option to edit, remove, or dismiss the broken links it identifies. However, there are reports that this plugin may slow down your website. 

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Pros

• Easy and convenient link check
• Inspects internal and external links
• Relatively quick parsing

Cons

• There will be no new updates
• Slows your website while running
• Encrypted links are often falsely reported dead.

Pricing

• This plugin is free
• You can also upgrade to a premium version for $59 per year that offers more features and support.

8. Integrity Link Checker

Integrity Link Checker is a free tool built specifically for Mac users. It scans your website for broken links and provides a report, allowing you to fix any issues. The tool also checks links within the comment section of your site.

Pros

• It is fast and accurate in finding broken links and other errors on your website.
• It allows you to customize your scan settings, such as crawl depth, timeout, user agent, etc.
• It supports linking from and to posts, pages, categories, tags, and custom post types.
• It integrates with other popular tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, etc.
• It is free for personal users with no restrictions.

Cons

• It does not support JavaScript rendering or dynamic websites.
• It does not have a broken link checker feature for external links.
• It does not have a sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar features.
• It is only available for Mac users.

Pricing

• Integrity Link Checker is free for personal users with no restrictions.
• Business users are required to buy a license for the more powerful Integrity Plus, Integrity Pro, or Scrutiny.
• Integrity Plus costs $15 per year and allows you to use the tool on one website. It includes exporting data, managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, and spelling & grammar features.
• Integrity Pro costs $25 per year, allowing you to use the tool on unlimited websites. It includes all the Integrity Plus features, custom link targets, auto keyword import, and professional statistics.
• Scrutiny costs $115 per year and allows you to use the tool on unlimited websites. It includes all the Integrity Pro features, advanced SEO checks, scheduled scans, and cross-platform results.

9. AutoLinks Manager Pro

AutoLinks Manager Pro is a WordPress plugin built by DAEXT. It offers advanced auto linking features, allowing you to automate the internal linking process on your site. The plugin also includes a Wizard Mode for adding multiple internal links at once and detailed reporting on link performance. 

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Pros

• Internal link automation
• Allows you to add internal links in bulk
• Link tracking and reporting
• Deep level of customization to add highly relevant links
• Can enable/disable auto links on individual blog posts
• Works with custom post types in WordPress

Cons

• It doesn’t offer link suggestions
• It may slow down your site if you have too many auto links

Pricing

• You can try the free version that offers Autolinks and detailed statistics features
• The paid version includes three plans: $49 for a single website, $79 for 5 websites, and $189 for 25 websites. 

Factors to Consider When Choosing an Internal Link Checker Tool

When selecting an internal link checker tool, consider the following factors:

Usability and User Interface

Choose a tool with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to analyze and manage your internal links. The tool should provide clear and actionable insights to help you optimize your website's internal linking structure.

Integration with Content Management Systems

Ensure that the tool you choose is compatible with your content management system (CMS). This will allow for seamless integration and make it easier to manage your internal links directly within your CMS.

In-depth Reporting and Analysis

Select a tool that offers comprehensive reporting and analysis features. This will help you gain valuable insights into your website's internal linking structure and easily identify and fix any issues.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Internal linking is an essential aspect of SEO that can significantly impact your website's performance, rankings, and user experience. By choosing the right internal link checker tool, you can optimize your website's internal linking structure and improve the overall effectiveness of your SEO efforts. You can also sign up for a 7-day free trial with Scalenut to optimize your website content and improve your ranking. 

About Scalenut 

Scalenut is an AI-powered SEO and content marketing platform that helps discover and create relevant content for your customers. Be it brainstorming a content strategy, creating comprehensive briefs, generating the content, or optimizing it per the best SEO practices, Scalenut has made the process extremely easy. Click here to create a free account and explore the many features of this tool.