Broken Link Checker – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org Skip to content Plugin Directory Broken Link Checker Details Reviews Development Support Description Automatically monitor your WordPress site for broken links and missing images, so you can fix them proactively and protect your SEO. Broken links aren’t just annoying for your visitors, they negatively impact your rankings and make your site look outdated and untrustworthy. But manually checking hundreds of links? Ain’t nobody got time for that! Broken Link Checker detects issues 20x faster and more accurately than other plugins, thanks to cloud-based link checking. This powerful plugin scans your pages, posts, comments and custom fields, spotting broken or redirected URLs and giving you a quick way to fix them all from one centralized dashboard. With over 17 million downloads and 50,000+ broken links found daily, Broken Link Checker leaves no URL behind. You can even receive email alerts when something breaks, so you’re never caught off guard. TL;DR: Broken Link Checker’s Key Features at a Glance – Automatic Link Monitoring: Scans your posts, pages, comments, and more. – Comprehensive Reports: Get breakdowns of broken links, with search and filtering options. – Quick Fixes: Edit, unlink, or ignore your broken links in seconds. – Cloud & Local Options: Choose cloud-based scans or use your server. – Custom Filters: Exclude post types, categories, and domains. – Crawl Everything: Pages, posts, even images and redirects. No URL is missed. – Broken Image Alerts: Catch missing visuals before anyone notices. – Multisite Support: Perfect for agencies managing multiple sites. Why Broken Link Checker? Every broken link is a strike against your credibility, and your SEO score. But staying on top of them can feel like fighting a never-ending battle. Broken Link Checker gives you an easy way to scan your content and fix issues before anyone notices. Whether you’re maintaining a personal blog, a client-heavy agency setup, or a content-rich eCommerce site, this plugin saves hours of manual work and helps you keep things tidy. Real-Time Link Monitoring Scan everything, automatically. Broken Link Checker scans your site deeply and frequently, to make sure no broken links are missed. The plugin will scan every inch of your sites, including within posts, pages, custom post types, comments and even embedded media, to ensure your site’s SEO and user experience are not compromised in any way. Email Alerts & Dashboard Notifications Never get blindsided by a broken link again. Choose how and when you want to be notified about broken links. You can receive instant email alerts, get a summary in your WordPress dashboard, and stay in control with flexible scan settings that meet your needs. Advanced Search Filtering Tailor your search to your workflow. Broken Link Checker makes it easy to fine-tune your scan settings, with search and filtering tools that help you check what really matters. Look for specific URLs, or filter by status or error type. Two Link Checking Engines Choose the right option for your site. Broken Link Checker gives you the option of using two unique engines based on your needs. Scan your content locally, or opt for the cloud-based checker for better performance and reduced server load. Fix Links Without Leaving the Page Manage broken links efficiently. No need to dig through old posts. Broken Link Checker lets you resolve all detected links right from your BLC dashboard. Bulk action means you can clean up dozens of links from the plugin interface with just a few clicks. Multisite & Agency Ready One plugin to manage them all. Handle broken links across multiple sites – not just one! Perfect for if you’re running a multisite network or managing multiple client installs. Broken Link Checker: Choose The Right Link Checking Engine for Your Needs With Broken Link Checker, you’ll have the flexibility to choose between a fast, cloud-based engine or a reliable, local solution. You can scan your site either way, and even switch between them without losing your saved settings. Not sure which one is right for you? Here’s a quick breakdown to help you decide: Cloud-Based Engine: – 20x faster scans with zero server strain – Unlimited page & URL checks, perfect for large or multiple sites – Fewer errors and less chance of being blocked by external sites – Crawls everything: posts, pages, menus, categories, and more – Manage broken links across all your sites in one place – Edit and unlink broken links from your dashboard Local Engine: – Runs directly on your server, no external connection needed – Scans internal & external links in posts, pages, comments, and more – Edit links inline and get dashboard//email notifications – Customize how broken links appear and control SEO behavior – Filter and search links by URL, anchor text, and other fields What Users are Saying About Broken Link Checker ★★★★★ “One of my must-haves. It does a great job checking and classifying all the links on your site and making them searchable and easily editable. I particularly like that it can update redirected links, check the Wayback Machine for missing ones, and makes it easy to update one at a time or in bulk.” – kelson ★★★★★ “My site has thousands of links. This plugin ensures the site doesn’t go stale. The tools for URL updating are clever and well-designed.” – Flaneuring ★★★★★ “This plugin did exactly what I needed. I had a big problem with image links becoming broken on my site. With this plugin, I was able to see the list of broken image links and, without knowing this was a feature, I was able to fix the links! This was more than I could have asked for and it worked perfectly.” – Rectorsquidd A Note from Broken Link Checker Hey there! I’m Broken Link Checker, your trusty tool for keeping your WordPress site clean, polished, and error-free. I scan your site for broken links, missing images, and redirects, so your visitors (and search engines) always get the best experience. Whether you’re managing one site or many, I make it easy to catch link issues early, fix them fast, and keep your content in top shape. You can even choose between my cloud-based and local engines depending on your needs. Like my fellow plugin heroes, I’m part of the WPMU DEV family, home to some of the most powerful site management tools in the WordPress world: Smush : Image compression & optimization Forminator : Forms, polls, quizzes & surveys Hummingbird : Page speed & performance booster Hustle : Pop-ups, slide-ins & email opt-ins Defender : Security, monitoring & hack protection SmartCrawl : SEO checker, analyzer & optimizer Want to level up your WordPress skills? Dive into the WPMU DEV Blog for expert tutorials, tips, and inspiration. Thanks for checking me out. I’m here to help you build a stronger, smoother, more professional website. -Broken Link Checker Broken Link Checker: Use Cases ✔ You’re a content creator who wants to protect SEO rankings ✔ You run a blog with hundreds of posts and external links ✔ You manage client websites and want a clean, reliable backend ✔ You’re an agency looking to scale QA across multiple sites ✔ You want to automate error detection and save time Installation: Get Started in 5 Minutes Broken Link Checker is super simple to set up. Install the plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory or upload it manually. Activate it through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress Choose between cloud or local mode in the settings Start scanning, and fix broken links right from your dashboard Need help? Check out the full documentation on wpmudev.com At WPMU DEV, we’re dedicated to helping WordPress users build faster, smarter, more secure websites with our suite of powerful plugins, site tools, and expert support. Join our community of developers, designers, and site owners at wpmudev.com , your all-in-one destination for WordPress success. Want to sharpen your skills and stay on top of the latest tips and trends? The WPMU DEV Blog is your go-to source for top-tier tutorials, updates, and insights. And hey, thanks for using our free plugins ! We’ve loved building them for you, and we’re excited to see what you create with them. Ready to banish broken links for good? Download Broken Link Checker and keep your site sharp, speedy, and SEO-friendly, no manual checking required. Screenshots Cloud Broken Link Checker Scheduled Broken Link Checker Scanning In plugin broken links summary dashboard Cloud Broken Link Checker Full Dashboard Local Broken Link Checker engine Local Broken Link Checker engine settings FAQ Is Broken Link Checker really free? Yes! The plugin is completely free and includes all the core scanning features. The plugin works either locally on your own server, or 20x faster, better and more accurately on WPMU DEV cloud servers. The Local version only works in your site admin, while the Cloud version works in both your site admin and in your Hub. The cloud version requires a connection to WPMU DEV to access its API. However, you don’t need to be a premium WPMU DEV member to access the cloud version! You can create a free Hub account (with some restrictions) directly in the plugin while settings things up. Does it work with custom post types and fields? Absolutely. You can scan everything from custom fields to WooCommerce product links. Can I use it on Multisite? Yes, Broken Link Checker supports WordPress Multisite and gives you full flexibility. Will it mess up my theme or content? Nope. The plugin doesn’t modify your content. It just finds the broken links and gives you options to manage them. How can I report security issues or bugs? We take plugin security incredibly seriously; if you have a bug or vulnerability to report, you can do so through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. It’s fast, easy, and you will be notified when the issue is fixed. Report a vulnerability Reviews I have used this plugin for years and it’s always been problematic, but now it gives every single link a false positive and then I have to manually check and dismiss each one. If I bulk rescan all of them again, then they all turn green and unbroken (for no valid reason), but if I click anything after that, it goes right back to being broken (but aren’t actually broken) and I have to start all over or just ignore all the broken links, which is hard to do.
This is one of the worst plugins I’ve used. It doesn’t even do it’s job partially right. I thought the cloud version would be better, but it’s not….not even a little bit. Thank you very much your work developers. I am very grateful for your wok and for your helpful plugin <3. I was migrating from my old CMS to Wordpress and on my Wordpress Localhost PC I successfully and conveniently fixed broken links, of which there were hundreds. I am most grateful for the integration with web.archive.org. This saved me many days of manual work I’ve been using this plugin on 3 of my main sites for several years. It reports too many false positives when it encounters a crawler violation when checking the URLs. I have NEVER been able to connect to the Cloud version either by manual or automatic connection. I can login to “The Hub” but can’t connect from The Hub or connect from the plugin on my sites.It is useful at finding broken links, but lately 90% of the reported links are not broken. The remote websites report “Forbidden” which is NOT broken. They just don’t like the method this crawler is using. quickly scan your site and repair broken links. yes please! Easy to install and get started. The newer global function is quite seamless. Just started using this plugin to check my 108 broken links on my 25 year old blog. Lame. Can’t even view the full links in their window to see them to help me figure it out – ya gotta click in, adding a few extra steps to an already very picky chore. Anything done in bulk doesn’t work which is frustrating and – again – adds a few extra steps to an already very picky chore. Maybe the other parts of the app work well – but this doesn’t. Read all 592 reviews Contributors & Developers “Broken Link Checker” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors WPMU DEV – Your All-in-One WordPress Platform ManageWP “Broken Link Checker” has been translated into 31 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions. Translate “Broken Link Checker” into your language. Interested in development? Browse the code , check out the SVN repository , or subscribe to the development log by RSS Changelog 2.4.8 Fix: Patched a vulnerability issue. 2.4.7 Fix: Removed Edit and Unlink Banner actions from the Local Scanner page. Fix: Updated webhook parse_request handler to use add_action instead of add_filter. Fix: Prevented broken links from being highlighted for non-logged-in users. Fix: Updated email reports to use public post links. Enhance: Added the blc_allow_subsites_email_notification filter to control sending email notifications from subsites in multisite installations. Fix: Updated React JS files to properly support translations. Fix: Removed type attributes from inline styles. Fix: Updated user-count logic in the Schedule Scan modal to correctly handle changes in user numbers. Enhance: Improved keyboard accessibility for the Search Users field in the Schedule Scan modal. Fix: Miscellaneousness improvements 2.4.6 Fix: Patched a vulnerability issue. 2.4.5 Fix: Patched a vulnerability issue. 2.4.4 Fix: Resolved issue where editing a link would get stuck in the Hub. Fix: Updated the Hub link to correctly point to the BLC page within the Hub. 2.4.3 Enhance: PHP 8.4 compatibility. Enhance: Compatibility with WordPress 6.8. Enhance: Add a new menu item to help you discover other free plugins by WPMU DEV and more 2.4.2 Fix: Patched a vulnerability issue. Fix: Notice about _load_textdomain_just_in_time. 2.4.1 Security Fix: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability. 2.4.0 Enhance: Improved editing and unlinking of URLs with query parameters. Fix: Resolved issue with implicit conversion from float to int in YouTube links. 2.3.0 New: Connect to the Cloud Engine API directly without installing the Dashboard plugin. Fix: PHP8 Deprecation message. Fix: Recipient confirmation link from scheduled scan email not working. Fix: User role conflict with Solidwp 2.2.4 Enhance: Code stability improvements. 2.2.3 Enhance: Optimize local db tables. Fix: Rare but possible Fatal error when unlinking a link. Fix: Removed deprecated Defender hooks. 2.2.2 Fix: Exclusions list spacing in Local settings. Fix: Database error Illegal mix of collations. Enhance: Use WP_HTML_Tag_Processor and DOMDocument instead of regex in Cloud Edit/Unlink. 2.2.1 Fix: Youtube playlist show as not found (Local engine). Fix: In Scheduled scan, users can be added twice in list. Fix: PHP8 Deprecation messages. Fix: Callback missing from Local cron jobs. Enhance: Added BLC bot UA in Defender’s bot allowlist. 2.2.0 New: Edit and Unlink broken links in Cloud Engine. Fix: Editor access blocked in Local Engine. Enhance: PHP 8.1 and 8.2 compatibility. 2.1.0 Improved admin menus, so they are separated to Cloud and Local Engine. Fix multiple emails issue. Fix Dashboard fonts. Fix insisting line-through text decoration on links in front end. 2.0.0 Version 2 release Added connection to free Hub features for cloud based Broken Link Checker. 1.11.21 Fix strict comparison causing db queries 1.11.20 Fix XSS vulnerability 1.11.19 Enhance compatibility with WordPress 6.1 Fix deprecated sanitization filter FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING 1.11.18 Updated UA string 1.11.16 Enhance compatibility with PHP 8 Enhance compatibility with WordPress 5.8 Remove donation links and adds 1.11.15 Added integration with WP External Links plugin 1.11.14 Added compatibility for WP 5.5. 1.11.13 Added filter for disabling email notifications. Added filter to use GET requests. (Thanks to Stian Lund Added option to disable last updated time on post types. Added option to check post excerpts. Added a confirmation box when unlinking. Added basic multisite support. Added proper error messages on YouTube video errors. Fixed bulk recheck option. Fixed minor database errors. Improved performance. Removed default YouTube API key. Removed usage of depricated WP Snoopy. 1.11.12 Added an interface to use personal YouTube API Key Fixed database errors on installation for some hosts. Fixed link editor not working with elementor. Fixed custom field key with multiple keys not rendering. Fixed compatibility issues with Business Directory plugin. Fixed bulk actions not working properly for some actions. Updated the owner on repository. 1.11.11 Fixed SQL errors caused on some hosts. Fixed search filters & pagination. Fixed link table design in mobile devices. Fixed deprecated functions on PHP 7.4 Fixed filter_var deprecated notices. Improved code with WPCS. Added a new API key for the YouTube API. 1.11.10 Fixed create_function deprecated notices. Fixed missing license information. Fixed table prefix on delete post action (Thanks to Guillaume Boudreau Merges cron schedules into 1 hook (Thanks to Der Mundschenk & Compagnie Add escaping to search params. Tested up to WordPress 5.3 Updated laguage files 1.11.9 Fixed Reflected XSS (Thanks to Tobias Fink for the report) Fixed param escaping to avoid possible XSS attack. 1.11.8 Various fixes. 1.11.7 Fixed a PHP 7.2 compatibility issue 1.11.6 Fixed link check not saving 1.11.5 Fixed a PHP 5.2 compatibility issue 1.11.4 Fixed a few more PHP 7.x/5.6 compatibility issues 1.11.3 Updated plugin information 1.11.2 Fixed a compatibility issue 1.11.1 Major performance improvement. Database queries reduced up to 10x in some cases. Feel free to contribute to the plugin on GitHub . Pull requests welcome! 1.10.11 Fixed the issue with HTTPS (Thanks to gmcinnes Broken Link Checker is now on GitHub . Pull Requests welcome. 1.10.10 New plugin image that was long overdue. 1.10.9 Fixed a security vulnerability where part of the log data visibile in the “Details” view was not properly sanitized. Updated French translation. Updated Portuguese translation. Removed an advertising banner. 1.10.8 Added a Swedish translation. Fixed an encoding-related bug that caused some translated text on the “Broken Links” page to show up as gibberish. Fixed a potential security vulnerability where the “Final URL” field was not sanitized. Fixed link text being truncated to 250 characters. Fixed the “Edit URL” function updating the link text even when the user left that field unchanged. Tested up to 4.2.1. 1.10.7 Tested up to WordPress 4.2. 1.10.6 Fixed a serious CSRF/XSS vulnerability. Switched to YouTube API v3. The old API version will be shut down on April 20, so the plugin needs to be updated to continue checking links to YouTube videos. Fixed long URLs overflowing into adjacent table columns. Fixed a few minor PHP strict-mode notices. Added database character set to the “Show debug info” table. 1.10.5 Security: Fixed an XSS vulnerability that could be used by Editors and Administrators to inject arbitrary HTML/JS code in the “Tools -> Broken Links” page. Other minor security fixes. Tested on WordPress 4.2 beta. 1.10.4 Tested on WordPress 4.1. Fixed a “Use of undefined constant ENT_HTML401” notice showing up on sites running PHP 5.3 or older. Fixed a double-escaping bug that could cause some link URLs to be displayed incorrectly. Updated French translation. Updated Dutch translation. 1.10.3 Security: Filter link URLs before displaying them on the “Broken Links” page. Security: Prevent Editors and Administrators who don’t have the “unfiltered_html” capability from creating “javascript:” URLs by editing existing links. 1.10.2 Fixed an XSS vulnerability on the link checker settings page. Fixed old YouTube embed code parsing – now it should pick up self-closing embed tags without an