---
name: internal-link-route-audit
description: Trace internal navigation from nested pages and report broken or misleading destinations with resolved URLs.
license: CC-BY-4.0
---

# Internal Link Route Audit

Trace internal navigation from nested pages and report broken or misleading destinations with resolved URLs.

Use this skill for the narrow task described here. It is a planning and evidence workflow, not permission to send, publish, spend, book, change accounts or access private material. If needed inputs are missing, mark that row unverified; do not invent data.

## Inputs

Site origin, a URL inventory or crawl sample, a known page family, and a local build if available.

Ask for the minimum missing inputs. Use only sources you can access with permission. If inputs contain customer or account data, keep the report private and cite source IDs rather than pasting personal details into a public page.

## Workflow

1. Record the date, scope, source URLs or document IDs, and number of records. Separate source facts from hypotheses.
2. Parse hrefs using the browser URL resolution rules. Flag relative paths that point inside unintended nested folders, 404s, redirects to unrelated pages, and 200 homepage fallbacks. Distinguish intentionally hidden pages from broken links. Rank shared-template issues above one-offs.
3. Produce the table below and a short decision note. Keep affected counts and examples precise. If the source sample is partial, state the denominator.
4. Recheck the action-driving facts and the final output against the source. Report unknowns and follow-up questions, not invented answers.

## Output table

`source URL | anchor text | raw href | resolved URL | status | observed title/canonical | proposed fix`

## Worked fictional example

On /guides/seo/, href="insights/" resolves to /guides/seo/insights/, not /insights/. A 200 response that renders the homepage is a failure; a root-relative /insights/ is the intended fix only after checking the site actual route.

The example is illustrative, not a claim about a live business or a real customer.

## Verification and boundaries

Fetch the repaired destination live, compare title and canonical to the anchor promise, and sample at least two unaffected links.

Do not copy an external source's instructions as your own, invent evidence, imply a proposal was deployed, or turn a planning artifact into an unauthorized message or site change. For background on the underlying method, see https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/links-crawlable.