Link Checker

Check all links in a website's HTML files and report broken, redirected, and slow links. Supports internal links, external links, and affiliate link identification. Use after publishing content to verify nothing is broken, or as part of a regular site health audit. Particularly useful for affiliate content where broken product links mean lost commissions.

Validate links in HTML files and report issues: broken links (404/500), redirects, slow responses, and affiliate link status.

What This Skill Does

• Scans all HTML files in a given directory
• Checks each link (internal + external) for HTTP status
• Identifies broken (4xx/5xx), redirected (3xx), and slow links (>5s)
• Groups links by type: internal, external, affiliate
• Outputs a clean markdown report sorted by severity

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
SITE_DIR	Yes	—	Directory containing HTML files to scan
LINK_CHECK_TIMEOUT	No	10	Max seconds to wait per link
AFFILIATE_DOMAINS	No	see below	Comma-separated affiliate domains to flag

Default affiliate domains: amazon.com,hostname/s/aspx,godaddy.com,bluehost.com,digitalocean.com,heroku.com,shopify.com,awin1.com,ref=

Scripts

check.sh — Full Link Audit

./scripts/check.sh [directory]

Output: markdown report with broken links, redirects, slow links, and affiliate links found.

quick.sh — Fast Scan (broken links only)

./scripts/quick.sh [directory]

Only reports 4xx/5xx status links. Skips affiliate and slow link checks.

affiliate.sh — Affiliate Link Report

./scripts/affiliate.sh [directory]

Lists all affiliate links and whether they're reachable. Critical for revenue site maintenance.

Output Format

# Link Checker Report — [site name]
Generated: [timestamp]

## Summary
- Total links checked: N
- Broken: N  🔴
- Redirected: N  🟡
- Slow (>5s): N  🟠
- Affiliate: N  ✅

## Broken Links (4xx/5xx)  🔴
[file] [line] [url] — [status]

## Redirects  🟡
[file] [url] → [destination]

## Slow Links (>5s)  🟠
[file] [url] — [response_time]

## Affiliate Links  ✅
[file] [url]

Example Usage

# Check all articles
SITE_DIR=./site ./scripts/check.sh

# Fast broken-link only
./scripts/quick.sh ./site/articles/

# Affiliate link audit
AFFILIATE_DOMAINS="amazon.com,digitalocean.com,bluehost.com" ./scripts/affiliate.sh ./site

Notes

• External links are checked with HEAD requests (faster than GET)
• Broken link reports are prioritized by severity (5xx worse than 4xx)
• Affiliate links are flagged but marked ✅ to confirm they're present
• Run this after any major content update to catch broken links before Google does