Edit URL and Unlink change the content of your posts. A link that is not part of a post’s content has nothing there to change, so the plugin tells you where it was found instead. This guide shows where to fix each kind.
What You’ll Learn
- Why some links can be edited and others cannot
- How to tell where a link comes from
- Where to fix links from a menu, widget, or theme
- What happens with page builders
Why Some Links Cannot Be Changed
The scan reads the finished page, so it finds every link a visitor can click. A link inside a post or page is saved in that post’s content, and the plugin can update it. A link printed by a theme template, a menu, or a widget is not saved in any post, so there is nothing to update from the results table.
Where the Link Comes From
The Found on column tells you. A link in a post shows the post title. A link that appears on the home page or on every page shows Homepage, theme or widgets.
Where to Fix It
- Menus – Appearance > Menus, or the Navigation block in the Site Editor
- Widgets and footers – Appearance > Widgets, or the footer in the Site Editor
- Theme files – the template that prints the link, or the theme options page
- Custom fields – in Pro, turn on Fix Custom Fields in Options and Edit URL also changes links stored in custom fields. See Scanning custom post types and custom fields.
After you change it, click Recheck on the row, or run a new scan.
Page Builders
A link built with a page builder is stored in the builder’s own data, not in the post content. For Elementor pages the results show Elementor page: with a link to fix it with Search & Replace for Elementor, a plugin made for changing links inside Elementor data.
This is available in Broken Link Fixer Free and Broken Link Fixer Pro.