Key Takeaways
- Most broken link checkers use web crawlers that can’t read Shopify’s content API — meaning they miss links in product descriptions and blog posts
- Scheduled scanning is more valuable than one-time audits for stores with active catalogs
- Fix suggestions (not just detection) eliminate most of the manual work
- The criteria that matter depend on your store size and how often your catalog changes
Searching for a broken link checker is straightforward. Evaluating one is harder. The tools that come up first in search results are mostly general-purpose web crawlers — built for any website, not specifically for Shopify. The ones that work best for Shopify stores have a fundamentally different approach.
Here’s how to evaluate your options so you choose a tool that finds what your store actually has, not just what’s easy to find.
Criterion 1: Where Does the Tool Read Links From?
This is the most important question, and most merchants never ask it.
Broken link checkers work in two ways:
Web crawlers visit your store’s URLs like a browser does, read the HTML, and follow the links they find. Tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Semrush work this way. They’re excellent for traditional websites.
API-based readers authenticate with Shopify’s Admin API and read your store’s content directly from the database — product descriptions, blog post content, custom pages — regardless of how your theme renders them in the browser.
Why does this matter? Shopify stores often render product description content via JavaScript. If a general crawler visits your product page and your theme builds the description client-side, the crawler sees blank space where your content links live. It misses every broken link in every product description.
What to ask: Does the tool use web crawling, Shopify API access, or both? If it only crawls HTML, confirm whether it renders JavaScript or not.
What to look for: Shopify-native apps with authenticated API access will find links that web crawlers miss — especially in product descriptions and blog posts, which are often the most link-dense content on a store.
Criterion 2: What Content Does It Actually Scan?
Even among Shopify-native tools, coverage varies. Check whether the tool scans:
- Product descriptions — often the most link-dense content and highest-risk for broken links
- Blog post body content — if you use your blog for SEO, this is critical
- Custom pages — about pages, FAQ pages, landing pages
- Navigation menus — broken nav links affect every visitor
- Collection descriptions — less common but worth confirming
- Metafields — if your store uses metafields for extended content, check if those are scanned
A tool that only checks navigation and ignores product descriptions will miss the majority of broken links on most stores.
What to ask: Show me specifically which content types your scanner reads. Is product description content included?
Criterion 3: How Fresh Is the Data?
There are two modes: one-time audits and continuous monitoring.
One-time audit: You run a scan, get a report, fix what you find. If you do this once a month, you might have 30 days of new broken links accumulating before you catch them. For a store that regularly adds and removes products, that gap matters.
Continuous monitoring: The tool scans on a schedule — daily, weekly — and alerts you when new broken links appear. Problems are caught within 24 hours instead of at your next manual check.
For stores with stable catalogs that rarely change products or URLs, a monthly manual scan is probably sufficient. For stores that regularly run promotions, discontinue products, or update content, scheduled scanning is substantially more valuable.
What to ask: Does the tool offer scheduled automatic scans? What’s the minimum scan interval?
Criterion 4: Does It Help You Fix — or Just Report?
Detection is step one. The work is in the fixing.
A basic broken link checker gives you a list of broken URLs. A good one tells you:
- Which page each broken link appears on (the source)
- What the broken URL was (the destination that’s now 404ing)
- What a reasonable fix would be
That last part — fix suggestions — is where tools differ most. Some tools just report the broken URL and leave the fix entirely to you. Others use context (the anchor text, the surrounding content, your store’s current URL structure) to suggest the most appropriate redirect or replacement link.
For a store with 10 broken links, manual fixes are manageable. For a store with 50 or 200, the difference between “here’s a list” and “here’s what to do about each one” is hours of work.
What to ask: Does the tool suggest fixes, or just report broken links? Can fixes be applied in bulk?
Criterion 5: Can It Scale to Your Store Size?
Not all tools are built for larger stores.
| Store size | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Under 100 products | Any tool works; simplicity matters more than depth |
| 100–500 products | API-based scanning becomes important; manual fix review is still feasible |
| 500–2,500 products | Scheduled scanning and bulk fix application are necessary |
| 2,500+ products | Full API access, priority queue, high resource limits |
Free plans often cap the number of products or pages scanned per run. If your store exceeds the cap, you’re getting an incomplete picture — which is worse than no scan at all, because you think you’re covered when you’re not.
What to ask: What’s the scan limit on each plan? Does it cover my full catalog?
Criterion 6: How Much Technical Knowledge Does It Require?
Some tools are built for SEO professionals. Others are built for store owners.
Screaming Frog, for example, is a desktop application that requires configuration, understanding of crawl settings, and interpretation of technical output. It’s powerful in the right hands. For a merchant who hasn’t done technical SEO before, the setup friction is significant.
A Shopify-native app installed directly from the App Store — authenticates automatically, scans without configuration, shows results in plain language — requires no technical background to use.
Neither approach is objectively better. But the tool you’ll actually use consistently is more valuable than a more powerful tool you use once and forget.
What to ask: What does setup look like? Do I need to configure anything, or does it work out of the box?
The Evaluation Checklist
Before installing a broken link checker for your Shopify store, confirm:
- Access method: Web crawler, API-based, or both? Does it render JavaScript?
- Content coverage: Does it scan product descriptions, blog posts, and pages?
- Scan freshness: One-time or scheduled? How often?
- Fix support: Does it suggest fixes? Can they be applied in bulk?
- Scale limits: Does the free/entry plan cover your full catalog?
- Usability: Can you set it up and understand results without technical expertise?
How Shopify-Native Apps Compare to General Crawlers
| Capability | General crawlers (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs) | Shopify-native apps (Relink) |
|---|---|---|
| HTML link detection | Strong | Strong |
| Product description links | Partial (depends on JS rendering) | Yes (API access) |
| Blog post content links | Partial | Yes |
| Metafield content | No | Yes |
| Scheduled scanning | Ahrefs/Semrush: yes; Screaming Frog: no | Yes |
| Fix suggestions | No | Yes (AI-powered) |
| Bulk fix application | No | Yes |
| Setup complexity | Medium–High | Low |
The honest answer is that neither approach covers everything. General crawlers are strong on structural issues — navigation, canonical tags, redirect chains. Shopify-native tools are stronger on content-layer links. For thorough coverage, both together is ideal.
For most merchants, a Shopify-native tool is the better starting point because content links are where most broken links live on a typical store.
Relink is a Shopify-native broken link checker that reads your product descriptions, blog posts, and pages directly via the Shopify API — finding broken links that general crawlers miss. Install free on Shopify.