Screaming Frog vs Ahrefs for broken links?

Different shapes. Screaming Frog is a desktop crawler that does one comprehensive pass of a site you own — excellent audit depth, but it runs on your machine and can throw false 429/403s on external links because it has no proxy rotation. Ahrefs runs against its own index in the cloud, ties broken links to backlink and ranking data, and uniquely surfaces broken inbound links from other sites to yours. Use Screaming Frog for deep single-site audits, Ahrefs when broken links are part of a wider SEO cleanup.

Why do general link checkers miss dead affiliate links?

Because they test HTTP status, and an affiliate link can return a perfectly healthy 200 while earning nothing. The product might be discontinued or out of stock, a redirect might have quietly dropped your affiliate tag, or the link might now bounce to the merchant's homepage instead of the product. To a 404 crawler that's all 'working.' Catching it needs a checker that understands affiliate links, not just HTTP codes.

Do I need an affiliate-specific link checker?

If you monetize with affiliate links, yes — alongside a general one, not instead of it. Run a general crawler (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or free GSC) for site-wide SEO hygiene, and an affiliate-aware checker to catch the 200-OK links that have gone earnings-dead. The two find different problems; a healthy site needs both checks.

Best Broken Link Checkers (2026): The Field, and the One Thing They All Miss

Q: What's the best broken link checker?

For a deep single-site audit, Screaming Frog is the technical SEO standard (free up to 500 URLs, then paid). For broken links tied to backlink and ranking data, Ahrefs or Semrush. For free scheduled scans with email reports, Dr. Link Check or Dead Link Checker. Google Search Console is the best free view of what Google's own crawler sees. They're all good at HTTP errors. The catch for affiliate sites is that none of them understand affiliate-specific failures, which need an affiliate-aware checker.

Broken links cost you twice: they hurt SEO and user trust, and on an affiliate site they quietly leak revenue. The good news is that finding HTTP-broken links is a solved problem with plenty of solid tools. The catch — and it's a big one for affiliate sites — is that there are two kinds of broken link, and the popular checkers only see one.

Full disclosure: Clickolytics includes an affiliate-aware link checker, and it's in the second half below. First, the honest field for the job most people mean.

The general field (all good at HTTP 404s)

Screaming Frog — the desktop crawler standard. One comprehensive pass finds every broken internal and external link plus redirect chains. Free up to 500 URLs, then around $259/year. Deepest single-site audit, but it runs on your machine (CPU/memory/bandwidth for hours on big sites) and can return false 429/403 errors on external links because it has no proxy rotation.
Ahrefs (and Semrush) — broken-link detection inside a full SEO suite, from roughly $99/month. Runs in the cloud against its own index, ties broken links to backlink and ranking data, and uniquely surfaces broken inbound links (other sites pointing at dead pages on yours — useful for reclaiming link equity with redirects). Best when broken links are part of a broader cleanup.
Dr. Link Check / Dead Link Checker — free-to-cheap cloud scanners with scheduled scans and email reports; Dr. Link Check adds basic SSL/reputation checks. Best for simple scheduled monitoring on smaller sites.
Google Search Console — free, and the most SEO-relevant view because it shows what Google's actual crawler experienced. Only covers what Google crawls, but it's the first place to look and costs nothing.

Rough chooser: deep audit → Screaming Frog; SEO-suite context → Ahrefs/Semrush; free scheduled scans → Dr. Link Check; free and SEO-truthful → GSC. For pure HTTP hygiene, don't over-tool it.

The one thing they all miss

Here's the affiliate problem none of the above solves: an affiliate link can be 200 OK and still earn nothing.

General broken-link checkers test for HTTP errors, so a link that returns 200 looks healthy. But an affiliate link can be technically fine and still earn nothing — a dead product, a tag-stripping redirect, or a bounce to the homepage. That's the failure a 404 crawler can't see, and the one that actually costs you commissions.

A general checker tests HTTP status, so a link that resolves looks healthy. But the ways affiliate links actually die are mostly invisible to a 404 crawler:

The product is discontinued or out of stock — the page still returns 200, but there's nothing to buy (or "currently unavailable").
A redirect dropped your affiliate tag — the link works, the visitor buys, and the sale credits nobody, or worse, someone else.
The link now bounces to the merchant's homepage or a category page instead of the product — technically 200, commercially useless.

A 404 is at least visible — it's obviously broken. A tag-stripped, still-200 link is the dangerous one: it looks fine on every dashboard while quietly earning zero. That's a silent leak straight out of your EPC, and it's exactly the kind of thing that makes a high-traffic page underperform for no obvious reason.

Affiliate-aware checking

Catching earnings-dead links means a checker that understands affiliate links, not just HTTP codes — one that follows the redirect, checks whether the tag survives, and knows what a missing Amazon product looks like. A couple of tools work at this layer: Lasso flags broken affiliate links inside WordPress, and Clickolytics includes an affiliate link checker that finds dead links, bad redirects, and Amazon products that have gone missing — the failures a general crawler waves through.

To be clear about our own tool: Clickolytics's checker is affiliate-aware, not a full site-wide SEO crawler. It won't audit every internal link, image, and redirect chain across your whole site the way Screaming Frog does. So the honest setup is both: a general crawler for site-wide SEO hygiene, and an affiliate-aware checker for the money links. They find different problems, and an affiliate site needs both passes — which is also why stale product data is a freshness problem as much as a link problem.

The bottom line

For finding 404s, pick from the general field by crawl depth and budget — Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or free GSC will all do the job. Just don't assume a clean 404 report means your monetized links are healthy. The link that costs you the most isn't the one throwing an error; it's the one returning 200 while earning nothing. Check for both.

Catch the links that earn nothing: Clickolytics's affiliate link checker follows your links, flags tag-dropping redirects and missing products, and ties it back to the pages losing money. See how it works →

Frequently asked questions

What's the best broken link checker? Screaming Frog for deep single-site audits, Ahrefs/Semrush for SEO-suite context, Dr. Link Check for free scheduled scans, GSC for the free SEO-truthful view. All handle HTTP errors well; none handle affiliate-specific failures.

Screaming Frog vs Ahrefs? Screaming Frog is a deep desktop crawler for a site you own; Ahrefs is cloud-based, ties broken links to backlink data, and finds broken inbound links. Use Frog for audits, Ahrefs for wider cleanup.

Why do general checkers miss dead affiliate links? They test HTTP status — and an affiliate link can be 200 OK yet earn nothing (dead product, dropped tag, homepage bounce). That needs affiliate-aware checking.

Do I need an affiliate-specific checker? Yes, alongside a general one: a crawler for site-wide 404s and an affiliate-aware checker for the 200-OK links that have gone earnings-dead.