Broken Link Checker for WordPress

Notice: This plugin has been transferred to ManageWP. I am no longer working on it. Please direct any feedback to the new developer. See the plugin homepage for more information.

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.

Features

  • Detects links that don’t work, missing images, deleted YouTube videos and other problems.
  • Periodically checks links in posts, pages, comments, custom fields and the blogroll.
  • New and modified entries are checked ASAP.
  • Notifies you on the Dashboard if any problems are found.
  • Lets you edit all instances of a specific link at once.
  • Gives you a list of all links ever posted on your site, with the ability to search and filter it.
  • Lets you apply custom CSS styles to broken and removed links.
  • Highly configurable.

The broken links show up in the Tools -> Broken Links tab along. If any invalid URLs are found a notification will also show up on the Dashboard widget. To save screen real-estate, the widget can be configured to stay closed most of the time and automatically expand when broken links are detected.

Download

broken-link-checker.zip (412 KB)

    Requirements

    • WordPress 3.0 or later
    • MySQL 4.1 or later

    The current version of this plugin is only compatible with WordPress 3.0 and up. If you have an older version of WP, try one of the older releases. Specifically, version 0.8.1 is the last one that’s still compatible with the WP 2.8 branch, and version 0.4.14 is the last one compatible with WP 2.1 – 2.6.x.

    Installation

    Install “Broken Link Checker” just like any other WordPress plugin :

    1. Download the .zip file (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.
    Related posts :
    This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 22:59 and is filed under WordPress Plugins. 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.

    2,584 Responses to “Broken Link Checker for WordPress”

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    1. Allstar says:
      June 20, 2009 at 03:18

      It doesn`t report redirects anymore since wordpress 2.8 😐 Any suggestions?

    2. Allstar says:
      June 20, 2009 at 04:05

      Revision,
      Its not 2.8,just tested on 2.7.1 and doesnt work either.So then the problem must be my recent change of webhosts.

    3. Allstar says:
      June 20, 2009 at 18:49

      Do i need to make some file or directory writable for the plugin to work?

    4. White Shadow says:
      June 20, 2009 at 19:36

      @ Allstar :

      I still haven’t gotten around to investigating this in-depth, but here’s what I can tell you now –

      1) You don’t need to make any files/directories writable to use this plugin.

      2) If it doesn’t report redirects then that’s probably because your (new) host doesn’t have CURL. In theory, the plugin should detect redirects even then, but I’ve barely tested that part of the code and it’s probably buggy.

      @ Michael Aulia :
      When have the Dashboard open in your browser, click View -> Source and check the HTML for PHP error messages (probably near the end of the source code).

    5. Wordpress : quelques plugins indispensables | MACCILABO says:
      June 21, 2009 at 01:49

      […] Broken Link Checker : Ce plugin vous informe des liens morts trouvés dans vos articles. Grâce à ces fonctions en […]

    6. Daftar 40 Plugin Wordpress ( Essential Plugin) « SEO | Belajar Wordpress says:
      June 21, 2009 at 20:15

      […] Broken Link Checker Checks your posts for broken links and missing images. You should also run a Xenu crawl once in a […]

    7. Tech Info #2 | Manus Blog says:
      June 23, 2009 at 17:25

      […] Broken Link Checker – Überprüft alle Beiträge, ob irgendwo ein toter Link ist. […]

    8. How to check for broken links on WordPress | Michael Aulia -Technology and Reviews says:
      June 25, 2009 at 13:17

      […] the help of a WordPress plug-in called “Broken Link Checker“, broken links can actually be monitored and dealt with […]

    9. Benoit says:
      June 25, 2009 at 17:11

      Is there any problems between Broken Link Checker & FB Connect plugin ?

    10. White Shadow says:
      June 25, 2009 at 17:29

      None that I know of.

    11. Lista e Wordpress Plugins Qe Perdor ne Lexoblog says:
      June 26, 2009 at 02:11

      […] Broken Link Checker – ky plugin i kontrollone te gjithe postet tuaja nese ka ndonje image apo link te thyer (broken link) dhe te njofton ne dashboard nese e gjen ndonje. Me ka ndodhe shpesh qe tme gjej broken links dhe fal keti plugini e kam rregulluar linkun aty per aty ne dashboard. […]

    12. Blog | SEO Suchmaschinenoptimierung says:
      June 26, 2009 at 19:02

      […] allerdings ein ziemlich zeitaufwendiges Unterfangen wäre, empfiehlt es sich, das Plugin Broken Link Checker zu installieren, welches selbstständig alle Links überprüft. Dann einfach nur noch […]

    13. 41 Essential Wordpress Plugins – Everything You Need to Run a Blog Like Mine | Wizpress.com says:
      July 1, 2009 at 22:46

      […] Broken Link Checker Checks your posts for broken links and missing images. You should also run a Xenu crawl once in a while to find errors on your site. Checking for broken links is a hassle to do manually, but these tools and plugins make it easy. […]

    14. Användbara Wordpress plugins - Johannes Holmberg says:
      July 2, 2009 at 12:57

      […] Broken Link Checker […]

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      July 2, 2009 at 23:41

      […] […]

    16. Wordpress Plugin: Broken Link Checker | Silkenhut's World says:
      July 5, 2009 at 17:21

      […] yes, download links. Before I forget, this is where you can download the “broken link checker“. [Wordpress Plug-in […]

    17. Allstar says:
      July 6, 2009 at 20:56

      Hi,
      I tried the latest version of this plugin and it didnt reported 302 redirection.You said that it was probably cause my server didnt have curl.I checked and my server has curl.I tried an older version of this plugin and it works with the 302 redirects.So good news but do you have any idea how this is posible cause your latest version of this plugin has a so much better dashboard interface and i would like to use the latest one 🙂

    18. White Shadow says:
      July 7, 2009 at 15:07

      Which version was that? I’m asking so I can compare the relevant code and (hopefully) see why it doesn’t work in the newer version. Also, could you give me an example URL (or two) that isn’t reported correctly? It might help with the debugging.

    19. 12 Extensiones Wordpress para mantenimiento y optimización - Blog | pixelco.us blog says:
      July 7, 2009 at 18:29

      […] Web: w-shadow.com/blog/2007/08/05/broken-link-checker-for-wordpress […]

    20. Allstar says:
      July 9, 2009 at 11:33

      The version that is working is 0.4.13 running on wordpress 2.8, example url: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=UJHYX7FE

      I also use your latest version of the plugin on another site running 2.7.1 and it works great,but the older version wont work on that site 😐

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