Broken Link Fixer opens your published pages the way a visitor sees them, finds every link and image in the page, and checks each address. This guide takes you from a fresh install to your first list of broken links.
What You’ll Learn
- Where to start a scan and what it reads
- What the progress bar shows
- What the scan does not touch
- What to do when it finishes
Starting the Scan
Open Broken Links in your dashboard (or Tools > Broken Links if Compact Mode is on in Options) and click Scan Site. The scan reads your home page and every published post of the types you scan, then checks each address it found. Draft, private, and password-protected posts are left out.
The scan runs in small steps from the page, so keep the tab open until the bar reaches the end. Each address is checked once, even when it appears on many pages, and requests have a short time limit so one slow website cannot hold the scan up.
What the Progress Bar Shows
The text under the bar says Reading pages while the scan opens your pages and collects the links, then Checking links while it asks each address for an answer. When it finishes, the page reloads with the results.
What the Scan Reads
- Links and images on your pages, including lazy-loaded images and responsive image sizes
- Links printed by your theme, menus, and widgets, because the rendered page is read and not only the post content
- External links, unless you turned off Check External Links in Options
Links to email addresses, phone numbers, and anchors on the same page are skipped, and so is anything you listed under Exclude URLs.
When It Finishes
Open the Broken, Warning, and Redirect filters to see what was found. Reading the results: broken, warning and redirect explains each status. Running a new scan replaces the old results, but every link keeps its first-seen date and the links you dismissed stay dismissed.
In Pro you can also click Scan in the Background to leave the page while the scan carries on, or schedule scans to run on their own.
Good to Know
- The scan never changes your content. Only Edit URL, Unlink, and the bulk actions do.
- Visitors are not affected: the scan only runs when you start it.
- Nothing is sent to an outside service. The scan reads your own pages and the addresses on them.
This is available in Broken Link Fixer Free and Broken Link Fixer Pro.