ø Broken Link Checker for WordPress

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Note : This page, and the feature list below are slightly out of date as a major update has been released recently (see details).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 -

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

Upgrading

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

Download
Version 0.5.3 : broken-link-checker.zip (40 Kb)

Requirements

WordPress 2.7 or later
MySQL 4.1 or later

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.

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895 Responses to “Broken Link Checker for WordPress”

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686
Invaders Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore says:

August 17, 2009 at 21:08

[...] keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check [...]
687
Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore | bloggersexpose.com says:

August 17, 2009 at 21:47

[...] keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check [...]
688
Jay says:

August 18, 2009 at 02:17

Wow! I *love* you broken link checker!
689
Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore | BestBlogBuzz says:

August 18, 2009 at 02:47

[...] keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check [...]
690
Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore | Wizpress.com says:

August 18, 2009 at 15:02

[...] keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check [...]
691
mgomes says:

August 18, 2009 at 20:47

I’m having this problem when using broken link checker and Simplepress Forum,

“Fatal error: Cannot redeclare json_encode() (previously declared in wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/library/JSON.php:810) in /wordpress/wp-content/plugins/broken-link-checker/utility-class.php on line 16″

It seems you must wrap the JSON calls with if(!function_exists()) calls. There should be no conflict.

best regards

692

White Shadow says:

August 19, 2009 at 00:38

It is wrapped with if(!function_exists()) calls, so I must say I’m quite confused by this error. See the relevant code fragment :

if (!function_exists('json_encode')){
	//Load JSON functions for PHP < 5.2
	if (!class_exists('Services_JSON')){
		require 'JSON.php';
	}
 
	//Backwards compatible json_encode.
	function json_encode($data) {
	    $json = new Services_JSON();
	    return( $json->encode($data) );
	}
}

693
v5.0 | funkygog Blog says:

August 19, 2009 at 01:43

[...] Broken-Link Checker [...]
694
Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore | Byte Right Domains says:

August 19, 2009 at 02:17

[...] keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check [...]
695
mgomes says:

August 19, 2009 at 12:38

Thks for your answer.

In that case, there is no clue, from where the error is coming from?
696
Dan at Necessary Roughness says:

August 19, 2009 at 19:44

Hey Janis –

Don’t know what you do on this last iteration of the plugin but it seems to work a LOT better now. The broken links really are broken! Thank you for your continued development!
697
White Shadow says:

August 19, 2009 at 22:39

@mgomes : I installed the latest version of the SimplePress forum to see what causes the problem, and I’m not getting the error you mentioned. Both plugins appear to co-exist peacefully.

Do you have the latest versions of both the broken link checker and the forum plugin?

@Dan : Ahha, thanks
698
Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore says:

August 20, 2009 at 07:36

[...] keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check [...]
699
Clay says:

August 20, 2009 at 11:57

dude, this is an awesome plugin and pretty quick one if one know how to work with wordpress plugin. However, this plugin have quite a serious issue on the amount of resource it takes on the server which is not that good. Please look this up. Thanks
700
mgomes says:

August 20, 2009 at 13:10

The error only happens when you post a topic to simplepress forum. that’s the only time.

I’m using SPF 4.1 beta.
701
White Shadow says:

August 20, 2009 at 19:37

@ mgomes : Try installing the development version. I added a little workaround that may help.

@ Clay : I’d be glad to reduce the resource usage, but I don’t see any easy ways to do that. If you have any practical ideas on how to improve the plugin’s performance, don’t hesitate to reveal them
702
mgomes says:

August 20, 2009 at 19:55

It’s working, the 2 plugins are now working peacefully

Thanks for this and keep up the good work in this really usefull plugin.
703
Patti Meador says:

August 21, 2009 at 21:25

Just installed the upgrade and if I try to run this along with WP Super Cache it makes my blog unusuable…can’t access home page or admin area. Have to disable BLC and WPSC by renaming folders in Cpanel (to disable both plugins) then I can enable one or the other, but not both. Enjoyed it while it lasted, but until this is fixed, I value WP Super Cache much more.
704
White Shadow says:

August 21, 2009 at 21:50

…this is bad, and I have no idea why it would happen. I’ll try to find out.

Meanwhile, you could use one of the older versions of the plugin. The DB format should be backwards-compatible for all 0.5.x releases.
705
White Shadow says:

August 22, 2009 at 01:27

Patti, you could also try this modified version. I doubt it will help much, but it’s worth a try.
706
Patti Meador says:

August 22, 2009 at 05:18

Thanks White Shadow. I’ll go back to the older version for now. Loved the plugin and never had a problem with it (other than the occasional false report of a dead link) before the latest upgrade. I have another blog that does fine with the latest version (http://shop.bostonsandboxers.com/store) but I don’t run wp-super cache on that install.
Thanks again for your help, and courtesy. I hesitated even reporting the issue as my previous experience w/plugin authors was less than pleasant. It’s nice to be treated with common courtesy
707
plugin tutor by picture says:

August 23, 2009 at 20:28

Hi
I love your plugin. yes after i installed I found 18 broken link at essential page at my blog.so i can repair it.
thanks
I make simple tutorial rich with screenshoot at my plugin blog at http://www.pluginspecialist.com

thanks
708
pluginspecialist.com says:

August 23, 2009 at 20:29

Don’t be dumb with Broken Link Checker…

If your blog rich of links, this Broken Link checker plugin is a must for you to prevent called “dumb” by visitor and never come back coz found one of your link not work well.
By this plugin activated it will automatically test al…
709
barronkid says:

August 24, 2009 at 00:06

Sorry to be dense … I loaded the link checker and have assumed all was well until I found a broken link in my site … went back and the BLC said nothing about it. Upon further inspection I read the script’s output more carefully in the admin site, realizing that it isn’t telling me I have zero broken links … it says I have zero links!

Specifically it says:
No broken links found.
No URLs in the work queue.
No links detected.

I searched the site for others who have experienced this phenomenon for some insight and direction, but couldn’t make any progress. Can you give me any advice on how to proceed in troubleshooting or checking the configuration more intensely?

Thanks in advance!
710
White Shadow says:

August 24, 2009 at 01:11

That is most certainly a bug. Try this version of the plugin and run a re-check from the options page (and please report back if it works).
711
Top 10 Killer Plugins für dein Wordpress Blog says:

August 24, 2009 at 01:50

[...] landen wo sie sollten. Das Internet ist bekanntlich ziemlich schnell im Wandel. Also, probiert den Broken Link Checker aus, ihr werdet überrascht [...]
712
Patti Meador says:

August 24, 2009 at 01:53

I tried installing the older version of the plugin and got the same result (where it ran w/o a problem before). In order to access my bog’s dashboaed or homeage I had to rename BOTH plugin folders (BLC and WP-supercache) in order to deactivate the plugins and regain access. I don’t get it, but I can’t afford to keep crashing my blog. Thanks for trying
713
Managing Your Links Status Onsite – Part 1/2 says:

August 25, 2009 at 06:32

[...] That plugins is Broken Link Checker [...]
714
20 Most Commonly Used Plugins on Wordpress Blogs | huibit05.com says:

August 25, 2009 at 15:54

[...] Visit author’s website [...]
715
7 Plugins Wordpress Obrigatórios | Webgrafismo says:

August 27, 2009 at 07:58

[...] links quebrados afectam na indexação por isso evite-os ao máximo com a ajuda do plugin – Broken Link Checker. Ele será suficiente para voce analisar e gerir eficazmente todos os links [...]