Repairing WordPress Broken Links

Repairing WordPress Broken Links shows you links being repaired by following a few steps. This will show you how to fix your broken links.

Last Updated: March 30, 2022

Latest News: Updated the documentation.

When your site has a broken link you need to find out why and how to fix this issue. The simple information below will help you understand further how this plugin works. It will also help you to resolve broken links found in your website and more.

Broken Link Checker Tutorials

• WordPress Broken Link Checker Plugin
• Repairing WordPress Broken Links

WordPress Repair Broken Links Steps

Step 1 ) Go to Tools -> Links to check if there are any broken links. The image below is showing 10 broken links.

Step 2 ) The following image Broken Link shows you how many broken links the plugin has found in the site.

Plugin Search Information

• Broken = In this tutorial the plugin found 10 broken links.
• Warnings
• Redirects = In this tutorial the plugin found 18 redirects.
• Dismissed

Step 3 ) The following image displays the many options you have when you move your mouse over a broken link. The following is a list of what you can do with different parts of the broken link.

URL

• Edit URL = This allows you to edit the broken URL and type in a new URL.
• Unlink = If you don’t want to allow this link to be active any more in the site then click on Unlink link.
• Not Broken = If you know that the link is not broken you can click Not Broken link.
• Dismiss = Allows you to dismiss monitoring of the broken link for various reasons. This feature would display again if the status of the broken link changed.
• Recheck = Allows you to recheck the broken link if you know it is not broken.

Status

• Details = Displays information about the broken link, for example time, duration, server, php version and more.

Link Text

This lets you know what kind of link it is whether it is an image or not.

Source

• Edit = This allows you to edit the broken link from page or post.
• Trash = You can delete this link if you want.
• View = This allows you to view the broken link from the front end of the page or post.

Broken Link Edit URL

Step 4 ) When you click on Edit URL the following or similar information will show up as per the following image.

Edit URL Information

• Text (None)
• URL = This is the physical broken URL the plugin found.
• Suggestions = No suggestions available.
• You can either Cancel editing the broken link or Update any changes made.

Step 6 ) When you click on Details, some information about the broken link will be displayed underneath your broken link. The following image shows you an example of what kind of information you will see about the broken link. This information is very important because it helps you understand why the link is broken.

Broken Link Information Displayed

The image above shows the following information. This helps you troubleshoot the broken link and helps you investigate further why and how to fix the broken link.

Note: There will more information or different information depending on the type of broken link the plugin finds. 

• Link last checked: September 9, 2016
• HTTP code: 404
• Response time: 0.437 seconds
• Final URL: http://localhost/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/111.jpg
• Redirect count: 0
• Instance count: 1
• This link has failed 3 times.
• This link has been broken for 2 hours.

The following is also part of the information the plugin displays about the broken link. There is more but I just wanted to share with you part of the information.

Note: What you see below will be different in your site. 

Log: === HTTP code : 404 ===

Response headers
================
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 00:15:28 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.17 (Win32) OpenSSL/1.0.2d PHP/5.6.23
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.6.23
Set-Cookie: swpm_session=463d64e545c1578222e3713d3541865d; path=/
Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0
Link: <http://localhost/wordpress/wp-json/>; rel=”https://api.w.org/”
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

===========================================

I hope the above information helps you understand how to resolved broken links using this plugin.

Important: Remember it is very important that you monitor your site for broken links. If you don’t you could be loosing money for your business if you are selling products online.

There is nothing worse than someone trying to buy a product from an online store and they find out the URL is broken. It creates a negative impact and feeling. That person will probably never shop in that online store again. 

I will be updating this tutorial from time to time. So keep coming back. If you have any question please let me know.

Enjoy.