Scan from wp-admin

The plugin scans your WordPress content for broken links from inside wp-admin. By the end of this page you will have run a scan. You will also know what it checks and what counts as broken.

Plan: manual scans are free on every plan. Scanning comments needs a site with Pro.

Start a scan#

You can start a scan from two places:

• On the Dashboard, click Start first scan, or Start manual scan after that.
• On Broken link scan, click Start new scan.

The button changes to "Scanning…". A banner then reads "Please do not close this page." A progress bar counts the items checked and the links checked so far.

The scan runs in short steps, so it keeps going on hosts with strict time limits. Keep the tab open until it finishes, because closing the tab stops the scan.

When the scan ends on the Dashboard, the plugin opens Broken link scan. On Broken link scan, the table refreshes in place.

What the plugin scans#

• Published posts and pages. The plugin also scans every public custom post type you pick under Content types in the settings.
• Rendered content. Shortcodes and page builder blocks are expanded first, so their links count too.
• Slider content. Smart Slider and Revolution Slider slides are checked while the Slider content setting is on.
• Comments. Approved comments are checked on a site with Pro, once the Comments setting is on.

Three kinds of links are read. Links in <a href> and embeds in <iframe src> come with HTML links. Image sources in <img src> come with Images.

What the plugin does not scan#

• Menus and widgets.
• Drafts, private posts and anything else not published.
• Media attachments, category and tag descriptions, and theme files.

To check what visitors see on every page, menus included, run a site scan on brokenlinkchecker.io. How a scan works explains the site scan.

Links the plugin skips#

Some links are never checked, so they never show as broken:

• Email, phone and other links that are not web addresses.
• Anchors on the same page, such as #contact.
• Cart, checkout, account, login and admin addresses.
• Known bot-walled hosts, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, Pinterest and Amazon. They block automated checks.
• Any address that matches one of your Exclusions rules.
• Every link you marked as Not broken.

What broken means in the plugin#

Each link gets one of three results:

• Broken means the page answered 404 or 410, or the address is malformed, such as htp://.
• Warning means the check could not confirm the link. Timeouts, SSL errors, 403, 408, 429 and every 5xx answer land here.
• Good covers every other answer. Good links stay out of the results table.

The plugin follows redirects and judges the final page. A link that redirects to a working page is good.

Some servers refuse the first quick check. The plugin then tries again the way a browser would, and that answer counts.

The plugin and the website count differently#

A site scan on brokenlinkchecker.io counts more answers as broken than the plugin does. So the same site can show different broken counts in each place. How links are classified compares the two rules.

Large sites#

On a large site, you can cap how many links one scan reads. Set Links per scan on the plugin's Settings & billing page. Plugin settings lists every option.