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. SMu Manual DoFollow – Dofollow Plugin für WordPress | dofollow, follow, kommentarlink, nofollow, pingback, plugin, seo, trackback, wordpress | Weblog | Wepner.net says:
      April 8, 2011 at 19:48

      […] In den Einstellungen kann man festlegen ab welcher Anzahl von Kommentaren der Link des Kommentators auf “dofollow” gesetzt wird. Auch gibt es die Möglichkeit die auf dofollow gesetzten Links auf die Validierung zu testen. Hierfür nutze ich aber ein weiteres Plugin den Broken Link Checker. […]

    2. En Popüler Wordpress Eklentileri ve WordPress Eklenti Yükleme | Dünyadan Ve Türkiye'den On Haberleri says:
      April 9, 2011 at 14:26

      […] Broken Link Checker […]

    3. find domain names says:
      April 10, 2011 at 05:00

      this plugin has saved me hours of time thank you.

    4. BrokenLink Checker Plugin Review | Marketing Advice, Tips & Tools says:
      April 12, 2011 at 13:26

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

    5. Wäschekorb says:
      April 13, 2011 at 21:25

      perfekt i found 108 broken links

    6. Portable Software says:
      April 14, 2011 at 22:11

      great plugin thanks!

    7. robert says:
      April 18, 2011 at 00:46

      Why the F is this plugin putting css in my header? Lazy f’ing coder!

      Why don’t you do it right and call your css externally instead of cluttering up my f’ing header!

    8. loothi says:
      April 20, 2011 at 18:05

      Hi there,

      Thanks for the Broken Link Checker – it’s super. One small thing… I’ve got a WP feed – which is redirected (via 302 moved temporarily) to a feedburner feed in my .htaccess.

      Broken Link Checker thinks this 302 status is a 404.

      I’ve told it that the link isn’t broken and it all works fine, I just wondered from an engineering point of view how it thought it was a 404? No problem, just curious.

      Cheers!
      ~loothi

    9. 10 best plugins for wordpress |News| Best Wordpress News says:
      April 25, 2011 at 22:17

      […] Broken Link Checker Checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found. Easy setup, works great – no more broken links! By Janis Elsts | Visit plugin site […]

    10. Girls Love Spammer : 短地址会传递锚文字把吗字去掉行不？ says:
      April 26, 2011 at 18:22

      […] Broken Link Checker for WordPress […]

    11. Coming Out meiner Plugins – Teil 2 | Sylvis Blog says:
      April 26, 2011 at 22:36

      […] Broken Link Checker […]

    12. Robert says:
      April 28, 2011 at 02:55

      Hi Janis,

      I recently moved my blog from a shared hosted environment to a cloud server. Essentially I now have full control over setup and configuration. Under the shared hosting environment your plugin worked like a dream – since blog migration I am having an issue with internal links. All internal links now return the following error:

      1. Log : couldn’t connect to host [Error #7]
      === (No response) ===

      Link is broken.
      ——————-

      Any ideas?

      Robert

    13. Tote Links und wie man damit umgeht » Dani Schenker's Mind says:
      April 29, 2011 at 10:12

      […] Broken Link Checker macht genau das, was er sagt. Er sucht in deinem Blog nach toten Links. Also Links welche auf eine […]

    14. Fehlerhafte Links im Blog schnell beheben | lemnis.de says:
      April 29, 2011 at 10:32

      […] Broken Link Checker gibt einem dann die Möglichkeit, fehlerhafte Links zu löschen oder auch sofort zu […]

    15. Detecting Parked Domains | WebDino.net says:
      May 1, 2011 at 17:42

      […] time ago, a commenter asked me if it was possible to make one of my WordPress plugins detect and report parked domains. I’ve done some research since then, and while it’s […]

    16. José says:
      May 2, 2011 at 16:50

      Regards,

      Unfortunately it does not work, I have many broken links on my forum, as reported by my visitors and Broken Link Checker does not find them, could help.

      Thanks

      translated by google translator

    17. 12 款WordPress Blog 增强插件 » 84博客，我的家！ says:
      May 3, 2011 at 10:42

      […] 1.Broken Link Checker […]

    18. RazaHost says:
      May 5, 2011 at 20:32

      Thanks for info 🙂

    19. Web Deisgn Sunderland says:
      May 5, 2011 at 21:42

      Very handy plugin, does a htaccess file to catch all 404 errors and redirect to a page get around this issue as well?

    20. YouTube 2 Mp3 says:
      May 6, 2011 at 17:41

      thanks! i found over 50 broken links with this plugin!

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