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”

    « Older Comments
    Newer Comments »
    1. What Checking Broken Links Can Teach You About the Web & Linking Out | SEOptimise says:
      March 24, 2011 at 17:26

      […] installing Broken Link Checker for WordPress and letting it run for a while on a blog that has been online for a few years you might experience […]

    2. 3 free SEO tools to check broken links says:
      March 25, 2011 at 01:14

      […] Broken Link Checker for WordPress – What better than an actual WordPress plugin, which assists you in finding broken links. With the huge popularity of WordPress, I’d imagine this one to be a smash hit amongst a huge number of bloggers. […]

    3. 12 款WordPress Blog 增强插件 | 李玲博客-ililing.net says:
      March 25, 2011 at 03:33

      […] 1.Broken Link Checker […]

    4. Cat says:
      March 25, 2011 at 06:16

      Wow, thank you for the amazing plug in! It caught over 80 broken links (out of nearly 550 posts.) I would never have found all of those without this. Great tool! I’m recommending it to all my WordPress friends.

    5. 12款优秀的WordPress博客插件 增强网站功能 | 蓝枫's BLOG says:
      March 25, 2011 at 20:03

      […] 1.Broken Link Checker […]

    6. Como evitar enlaces rotos — EL BLOG DE MERCADDER says:
      March 25, 2011 at 20:51

      […] Usa el plugin Broken Link Checker. Puedes encontrarlo en la página de plugins de tu blog buscándolo por su nombre o bajándolo desde la página del programador: http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/08/05/broken-link-checker-for-wordpress/ […]

    7. 12 款WordPress Blog 增强插件 | 装逼犯 says:
      March 25, 2011 at 23:01

      […] 1.Broken Link Checker […]

    8. 12 款WordPress Blog 增强插件 | laura's site says:
      March 29, 2011 at 01:28

      […] 1.Broken Link Checker 网站如果充斥着失效的链接会失去用户的信任。但各种导致链接失效的事情又难以避免，如视频或照片被删除，网页被移除，网站迁移到新的服务器……定期检查链接是很费时费力的。这个插件能够通知你这方面发生的问题，并且让你能够从一处重新编辑所有失效的链接。 […]

    9. Bill Bennett says:
      March 31, 2011 at 02:04

      Is this working correctly?

      The plug-in reports:

      Found 1181 broken links
      No URLs in the work queue.
      Detected 1499 unique URLs in 2232 links

      Which means about 80% of my links are broken. Only they are not broken.

      I checked through the results. ALL are identified as ‘403 Forbidden’.

      Every single link on the first page of results resolved immediately to the correct target.

      Is there something I’m missing here?

    10. White Shadow says:
      March 31, 2011 at 10:01

      This is almost certainly caused by some sort of bot filter or hotlink protection. That is, something on your server – perhaps a script, or a configuration option – is blocking the plugin’s access to all those links, which makes the plugin think they’re broken.

    11. Posicionamiento SEO en Wordpress II | Creadores de Estrellas, marketing y publicidad digital, Palma de MallorcaCreadores de Estrellas, marketing y publicidad digital, Palma de Mallorca says:
      March 31, 2011 at 11:36

      […] página, ya que eso da bastante mala imagen. Para solucionar este problema, el plugin broken link checker busca a través de todo el contenido de tu blog todos aquellos enlaces que se han roto, videos que […]

    12. William Meisheid says:
      March 31, 2011 at 19:40

      I went to update my plugin and I see there is no longer a pro version. Is that true. Should I just install the current plugin on my 3.1 site?

      Thank you.

    13. White Shadow says:
      March 31, 2011 at 19:45

      Yes, that’s true. Just install the latest free version – it has the same features the Pro version did.

    14. Enhance Your WordPress Blog With These 12 Plugins « Web Design News says:
      April 1, 2011 at 15:02

      […] Broken Link Checker The best websites in the world will lose credibility if it has broken links, but it happens to the best of us. Videos or photos get deleted, pages are taken down, websites move to new servers. It is time consuming and difficult to check each link on a regular basis. This plug-in automatically checks links in posts, comments, pages and the blogroll. It notifies you about problems and allows you to edit all instances of the broken link from one place.
 […]

    15. Plug-in yang perlu ditambahkan di wordpress | akangfieart says:
      April 4, 2011 at 07:09

      […] Broken Link Checker untuk mengecek adanya broken link di blog sobat […]

    16. Perdita Page Rank : possibili cause o motivi | Pecciola says:
      April 7, 2011 at 06:56

      […] portano a pagine inesistenti o rimosse e presentano un bel 404. Per WordPress, ad esempio, esiste questo plugin per scovarli e […]

    17. 12 款增强 WordPress Blog 的插件集合 says:
      April 7, 2011 at 08:18

      […] 1.Broken Link Checker  艾可优–是一个关注生活、感悟生活、记录网络新鲜事、有趣事、创意创新的博客！ 网站如果充斥着失效的链接会失去用户的信任。但各种导致链接失效的事情又难以避免，如视频或照片被删除，网页被移除，网站迁移到新的服务器……定期检查链接是很费时费力的。这个插件能够通知你这方面发生的问题，并且让你能够从一处重新编辑所有失效的链接。 […]

    18. Jeff says:
      April 7, 2011 at 20:51

      Hello and thanks for the great plug-in!

      We have been using it for a year now with no issues and today we are suddenly receiving this message in posts and edit screens… any ideas?

      Fatal error: Class ‘blcConfigurationManager’ not found in /home/wtvi/xxxxx.com/wp-content/plugins/broken-link-checker/core/init.php on line 57

      Thanks for any insight you may offer!

      PS I removed our website and replaced with the ‘xxxx’ just as a precaution.

    19. White Shadow says:
      April 7, 2011 at 21:08

      That’s very strange. All I can think of is some sort of file corruption. Check if /wp-content/plugins/broken-link-checker/includes/config-manager.php exists and is not empty. If it doesn’t or contains nothing/garbage data, you will need to reinstall the plugin.

      You could also try installing the development version, but the chances that it will fix this particular problem are pretty slim.

    20. Jeff says:
      April 7, 2011 at 21:12

      Good idea, I think I will re-download and reinstall the plug-in… Thanks!

    « Older Comments
    Newer Comments »

    Leave a Reply