Broken Link Checker

What do you think of the websites you visit that have broken links? What do you think your visitors think of the broken links on your website?

Broken links on your website give a negative impression. Visitor frustration through wasted time and the negative impression due to unreliable information are just two of the impacts broken links can have. I’m sure you can think of many more implications.

So, add this to your website rules, check your website regularly for broken links. Ensure links do not return a 404 error (I’ll take it as read that you do have a user friendly 404 error page on your website) and where possible make sure the links are still pointing to the intended resource and haven’t been switch to some sleazy marketing or adult content page.

The simplest way to check for broken links for WordPress webmasters is to install the WordPress plugin Broken Link Checker by Janis Elsts. This plugin automatically checks all posted links in all blog posts regularly to ensure links are valid.

Broken Link Checker Features

• Monitors links in your posts, pages, the blogroll, and custom fields (optional).
• Detects links that don’t work and missing images.
• Notifies you on the Dashboard if any are found.
• Also detects redirected links.
• Makes broken links display differently in posts (optional).
• Link checking intervals can be configured.
• New/modified posts are checked ASAP.
• You view broken links, redirects, and a complete list of links used on your site, in the Tools -> Broken Links tab.
• Searching and filtering links by URL, anchor text and so on is also possible.
• Each link can be edited or unlinked directly via the plugin page, without manually editing each post.

Basic Usage

(online 091230 edited – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/)

Once installed, the plugin will begin parsing your posts, bookmarks (AKA blogroll), etc and looking for links. Depending on the size of your site this can take a few minutes or even several hours. When parsing is complete the plugin will start checking each link to see if it works. Again, how long this takes depends on how big your site is and how many links there are. You can monitor the progress and set various link checking options in Settings -> Link Checker.

Note: Currently the plugin only runs when you have at least one tab of the Dashboard open. Cron support will likely be added in a later version.

The broken links, if any are found, will show up in a new tab of WP admin panel – Tools -> Broken Links. A notification will also appear in the “Broken Link Checker” widget on the Dashboard. To save display space, you can keep the widget closed and configure it to expand automatically when problematic links are detected. The “Broken Links” tab will by default display broken links that have been detected so far. However, you can use the subnavigation links on that page to view redirects or see a listing of all links – working or not – instead. There are several actions associated with each link listed -

• “Details” shows more info about the link.
• “Edit URL” lets you change the URL of link.
• “Unlink” removes the link but leaves the link text intact.
• “Exclude” adds the link’s URL to the exclusion list.
• “Discard” lets you manually mark the link as valid.

 

This plugin will monitor your website looking for broken links at a customisable pre-set interval and let you know if any are found in the Dashboard Tools -> Broken Links tab where you can modify or delete the offending links.

The Broken Link Checker plugin is an first-rate method of finding and dealing with broken links in a WordPress website. My thanks to Janis for an excellent utility.