The four link states

Every link the extension checks lands in one of four states. By the end of this page you will know what each state means and what to do about it.

Plan: the four states work the same way on every plan, for guests and signed-in accounts alike.

Broken#

A link is broken when it answers with an error code, fails to load, or is a soft 404. The badge on its row shows what went wrong with the link:

• A status code such as 404, 410 or 500 shows the error the server sent back.
• S404 marks a soft 404, a page that loads but shows an error message.
• TIME means the link did not answer in time.
• CONN means the connection to the server failed.
• DNS means the domain name does not exist or does not resolve.
• SSL means the security certificate of the site failed the check.

Broken links are the ones your visitors hit, so fix them first. How links are classified explains soft 404 pages in detail.

The summary line leaves timeouts and failed connections out of its broken count, because those failures can be temporary. The list still shows them, so the list can hold more rows than the count.

Blocked#

Some sites refuse automated link checkers, even when the link works fine for people. The extension marks those links with an amber BLOCK badge. A link lands in this state in any of these cases:

• The server answers 403 or 429. These answers mean "forbidden" or "too many requests", and they say nothing about the page.
• A firewall shows a challenge page instead of the real page.
• A known bot-walled site refuses the check or drops the connection. These are LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and Twitter, Trustpilot, YouTube and youtu.be, and TikTok.

Hover the badge to read "This site blocks automated link checkers. The link most likely works." Blocked links never count as broken, and they sit under their own BLOCKED heading. Open a blocked link in your browser if you want to confirm that it works.

A real 404 from one of these sites still counts as broken. A link shows as blocked covers what to do next.

Redirect#

A redirect is a link that sends you on to another address before the page loads. The scanner follows the redirect and judges the page at the end.

If that page works, the link counts as a redirect and not as broken. If the page at the end fails, the link counts as broken instead. Redirects show in the side panel under REDIRECT and in the CSV, but not in the popup list. On a clean result, the receipt says whether your redirects were a single hop or some chained.

OK#

An OK link loaded a working page directly, without an error or a redirect. The popup folds OK links into a line that ends in "returned 200 OK". The side panel groups the same links under its 200 OK heading.

Which states count as broken#

A red 0 on the toolbar badge means nothing is broken, but some sites blocked the check. Highlight and the side panel explains every badge on the toolbar icon.