Broken Link Checker for WordPress

Sometimes, links get broken. A page is deleted, a subdirectory forgotten, a site moved to a different domain. Most likely many of your blog posts contain links. It is almost inevitable that over time some of them will lead to a “404 Not Found” error page. Obviously you don’t want your readers to be annoyed by clicking a link that leads nowhere. You can check the links yourself but that might be quite a task if you have a lot of posts. You could use your webserver’s stats but that only works for local links.

So I’ve made a plugin for WordPress that will check your posts (and pages), looking for broken links, and let you know if any are found.

Download it now! (40 KB)

Note : This page, and the feature list below are slightly out of date as a major update has been released recently (see details). I’ll get around to updating this page eventually.

Features

  • Checks your posts (and pages) in the background (whenever the WP admin panel is open ).
  • Detects links that don’t work and missing images. Checks both internal and outbound links.
  • Notifies you on the Dashboard if any problems are found.
  • Link checking intervals can be configured.
  • New/modified posts are checked ASAP.

The broken links show up in the Manage -> Broken Links tab. If any invalid URLs are found a notification will also show up in the sidebar on the Dashboard.

The Broken Links tab displays a list of invalid URLs found along with the relevant posts and the anchor text of the links. “View” and “Edit Post” do exactly what they say and “Discard” will remove the message about a broken link, but not the link itself (so it will show up again later unless you fix it; this plugin doesn’t modify your links).

By default all old posts/links are re-checked every 72 hours, or you can set a different time period.

Notes (Semi-Technical)
I realize there’s a lot of features that could be added to improve this plugin considerably. However, this release is intended to “test the waters” and see if there’s demand for a plugin like this, so I only implemented the most basic functions. The plugin has been upgraded to be slightly beyond “basic” ;)

I thought about using WP’s pseudo-cron to run the link checker by schedule and decided against it. AFAIK the cronjobs execute when a page is requested; since this plugin does some lengthy processing it may increase page load times unacceptably when used in this manner. That’s why I set it to run the checks asynchronously (AJAX) and invisibly in the admin panel.

Installation
Just like any other WordPress plugin –

  1. Download (see below).
  2. Unzip.
  3. Upload the broken-link-checker folder to you wp-content/plugins directory.
  4. Activate the plugin in the Plugins tab.

Upgrading

  1. Deactivate the plugin (important!).
  2. Do steps 1.-3. from “Installation”.
  3. Upload the broken-link-checker folder to you wp-content/plugins directory.
  4. Re-activate the plugin in the Plugins tab.

DownloadCC-GNU GPL
Version 0.5.3 : broken-link-checker.zip (40 Kb)
Compatibility : Starting with version 0.5 this plugin is only compatible with WordPress 2.7 and up. Older versions (e.g. ver. 0.4.14) should work with WP 2.1 – 2.6.x.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 22:59 and is filed under Applications, Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

877 Responses to “Broken Link Checker for WordPress”

Pages: « 1 … 14 15 16 17 18 [19] 20 21 22 23 24 … 30 » Show All

  1. 518
    SiteMixでホームページ作成した次の日にやったこと。 | Vive Hodie : その先にあるもの。 says:
    May 12, 2009 at 18:39

    [...] ・Broken Link Checkerというリンク切れを打ち消し線で自動で消してくれるプラグインも導入。 [...]

  2. 519
    6 plugins para el mantenimiento de tu Wordpress : Blogografia says:
    May 12, 2009 at 19:31

    [...] Broken link checker: Se encarga de revisar los enlaces salientes de nuestro blog y comprobar que estos están activos aún o no. Muy útil para artículos antiguos. [...]

  3. 520
    Nicoman » Plugin de wordpress para chequear los enlaces says:
    May 13, 2009 at 14:08

    [...] por que se cambio de lugar y muchos otros motivos. Para solucionarnos un poco la vida, tenemos broken link checker, un plugin para wordpress que se encarga de esta [...]

  5. 522
    Evitar errores 404 y enlaces rotos dentro de Wordpress | Golfizta | En Internet con temas generales Al puro Estilo 2.0 says:
    May 15, 2009 at 06:04

    [...] muy útil dentro del CMS Wordpress, para solucionar este error enviado por el diablo es el Broken Link Checker, no nos solucionara por arte de Magia los enlaces rotos. Pero nos va a ayudar a identificar donde [...]

  6. 523
    12 Essential Wordpress Plugins :: TechMiso says:
    May 15, 2009 at 17:35

    [...] Broken Link Checker periodically checks all posts for broken links and missing images and notifies publishers via the Wordpress dashboard when either are found. The admin panel for the missing links and images is nice too, allowing for easy fixing of links and images or discarding such messages. [...]

  7. 524
    CHUCKREY − 12 Essential Wordpress Plugins says:
    May 15, 2009 at 17:40

    [...] Broken Link Checker periodically checks all posts for broken links and missing images and notifies publishers via the Wordpress dashboard when either are found. The admin panel for the missing links and images is nice too, allowing for easy fixing of links and images or discarding such messages. [...]

  9. 526
    5 Useful SEO WordPress Plugins | Daily Net Tips says:
    May 19, 2009 at 11:44

    [...] It will show the broken link on your dashboard which you can unlink from there. Download Broken link checker for WordPress [...]

  10. 527
    ø 33 Active Plugins, Or How My WordPress Blog Works Behind The Scenes | W-Shadow.com ø says:
    May 20, 2009 at 19:07

    [...] Broken Link Checker by Janis Elsts Sometimes, links get broken. A webpage can be removed or move to a different domain. [...]

  11. 528
    GoRhY » Mi lista de plugins says:
    May 21, 2009 at 13:50

    [...] Broken Link Checker 0.4.14 – Por Janis Elsts – Detecta si hay algún enlace roto y te avisa. [...]

  13. 530
    KennethBloggen » Blogg arkiv » Mina WordPress listor: Plugin says:
    May 21, 2009 at 22:59

    [...] Broken Link Checker kollar igenom alla dina inlägg och sidor med mera i jakten på länkar och länkar till bilder som [...]

  14. 531
    ø Broken Link Checker 0.5 Available | W-Shadow.com ø says:
    May 23, 2009 at 17:10

    [...] Link Checker 0.5 Available The latest version of Broken Link Checker for WordPress is now availble on WordPress.org. If you’re already using the plugin you should get an update [...]

  15. 532
    Broken Link Checker | hweia.ru says:
    May 23, 2009 at 21:23

    [...] а затем убраны из нее – у одного из пользователей возникла проблема с совместимостью новой версии с All-In-One SEO. Появились [...]

  17. 534
    Broken Link Checker for WordPress says:
    May 23, 2009 at 23:49

    [...] original here: Broken Link Checker for WordPress Share and [...]

  18. 535
    Ven says:
    May 24, 2009 at 00:28

    Unfortunately, the plugin doesn’t seem to work for me. I have WP 2.7.1, the plugin installed and was activated without problems. However, it fails to find any missing images and broken links in my posts. Just as a test, I added a broken link to one of my posts and also deleted an image from the server. I re-scanned the site using the plugin and it still reported no problems. I know I have quite a few broken links and missing images in my blog. You plugin failed to detect any of them. Am I doing something wrong?

  19. 536
    White Shadow says:
    May 24, 2009 at 00:35

    Does it detect any links at all? It should show a status message on the configuration page that says how many URLs/links were detected. You can also see all detected links in Tools -> Broken Links -> All.

    If any links are detected, check the list for the one’s that are supposed to be broken and see what their detailed log says. You can see the log by clicking either the “link text” cell of the corresponding row or the “Details” action link.

    Hint : the newest links will show up at the end of the “All” list.

  20. 537
    Mory says:
    May 24, 2009 at 14:39

    could you add support for rapidshare and Megaupload links to your plugin? :/ thanks

  21. 538
    White Shadow says:
    May 24, 2009 at 14:48

    That would be tricky. They probably use non-standard error pages. So probably not in the near future.

  22. 539
    Allstar says:
    May 24, 2009 at 19:43

    It does detect Megaupload links,i use a lot of links from Megaupload and they get detected as a 302 redirection :D

  24. 541
    links for 2009-05-25 : Webmercial.dk says:
    May 25, 2009 at 11:30

    [...] ø Broken Link Checker for WordPress | W-Shadow.com ø (tags: wordpress plugin) [...]

  25. 542
    5 Tips on Getting Started with the Thesis WordPress Theme — THE NEW 24100.NET says:
    May 27, 2009 at 11:43

    [...] are not so much Thesis or even design specific are (for the sake of completeness):  Audio player, Broken Link Checker, External Links, FriendConnectLogin, Login LockDown, Referrer Detector, Samsarin PHP Widget, [...]

  27. 544
    6 plugins para el mantenimiento de tu Wordpress | Enchulatublog says:
    May 28, 2009 at 10:58

    [...] Broken link checker: Se encarga de revisar los enlaces salientes de nuestro blog y comprobar que estos están activos aún o no. Muy útil para artículos antiguos. [...]

  28. 545
    Neues Design / Tech-Info | Manus Blog says:
    May 29, 2009 at 01:25

    [...] Broken Link Checker – Zum Aufspüren kaputter Links [...]

Pages: « 1 … 14 15 16 17 18 [19] 20 21 22 23 24 … 30 » Show All

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