Markdown Link Checker: Find Broken Links Fast

Broken links hurt credibility and SEO. A markdown link checker helps you find and fix bad URLs before you publish. It scans your Markdown, extracts links, and tries to fetch each URL to see if it responds.

Because this runs in the browser, some URLs may block CORS. That is normal. The checker still tells you which links might be problematic, so you can verify them manually.

When to use a link checker

• Before shipping documentation updates
• When migrating a blog or CMS
• After changing a domain or URL structure
• As part of your content QA checklist

How it works

1. Paste your Markdown.
2. The tool extracts all link and image URLs.
3. It runs a HEAD check, then falls back to GET.
4. Results show status codes or CORS errors.

What to do with CORS errors

CORS errors do not mean the link is broken. It just means the browser cannot fetch it. In that case, spot check the URL in a new tab.

Best practices for clean links

• Prefer absolute URLs for external references.
• Use a link style guide to keep sources consistent.
• Avoid linking to short lived campaign pages.

QA checklist

• All links return 200 or 301
• Images load without errors
• No typos in protocol (http vs https)
• Redirects point to final canonical page

FAQ

Why do some links show CORS errors? Some sites block cross origin requests in browsers. That does not always mean the link is dead.

Does it handle reference style links? Yes, the parser extracts them from Markdown tokens.

Can I export the results? Not yet, but you can copy the output list and review it in a spreadsheet.

Try the tool