Broken Link Checker

A Node.js application that scans websites for broken links using a breadth-first approach.

Features

• Scans websites recursively up to a specified depth
• Checks for broken links within the same domain
• Provides detailed reports of broken links
• Configurable scan depth and timeout settings
• Pretty-printed console output with statistics

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14 or higher)
• npm (Node Package Manager)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/akhilarsh/broken-link-checker.git
   cd broken-link-checker

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Create environment file:

   cp .sample.env .env

   Then edit the .env file with your configuration.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default	Required
HOME_PAGE	Starting URL for the scan	-	Yes
MAX_DEPTH	Maximum depth for recursive scanning	1	No
TIMEOUT_MS	Request timeout in milliseconds	10000	No

Example .env file:

HOME_PAGE=https://www.example.com
MAX_DEPTH=2
TIMEOUT_MS=10000

Usage

Run the link checker:

npm start

The application will:

1. Start from the specified HOME_PAGE
2. Scan all links on the page
3. Follow internal links up to MAX_DEPTH levels
4. Generate a report of any broken links found

Output

The scanner provides:

• Real-time progress updates
• Summary of links found per page
• Table of broken links with details
• Final statistics including:
  • Total pages scanned
  • Total working links
  • Total broken links
  • Total unique URLs found

Error Codes

The following error codes may be encountered:

Code	Description
400-599	HTTP status codes
TIMEOUT	Request exceeded timeout limit
NETWORK_ERROR	Network connectivity issues
UNKNOWN_ERROR	Unspecified errors

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.