Check for Broken Links

Enabling the Broken Links Checker

To make sure your LinkCentral links remain accessible, you can enable the Broken Links Checker feature. When enabled, LinkCentral will periodically scan your links to detect any that are no longer working (e.g., the destination website is down, times out, or returns a 404 error).

This feature works for both:

• The main destination link
• Any dynamic redirect rules you’ve set

The Broken Links Checker is disabled by default. You can enable it by going to:

Plugin Settings → Features → Enable Broken Links Checker

You’ll also find a “Configure” link next to it for additional settings.

Configuring the Broken Links Checker

There are four main settings you can customize.

1. “Check” Frequency

Choose how often LinkCentral should scan your links:

• Daily
• Weekly

When set to Daily, LinkCentral will scan all your links once per day. This scanning happens in the background, in batches every two hours.

Example:
If you have 100 links and daily checks are enabled, roughly 8–9 links will be scanned every 2 hours.

Tip: For large websites (with thousands of links), we recommend using Weekly scans to reduce server load. If you have tens of thousands of links, you may want to keep the checker disabled entirely to avoid performance issues.

2. Double Confirmation

Sometimes, a destination link may be temporarily inaccessible due to minor issues like network errors or server hiccups. With Double Confirmation enabled, a link must fail two consecutive checks before it’s marked as broken. Here’s how it works:

• If a link fails the first check, it will be rechecked in the next scan batch (approximately two hours later).
• If it fails again, only then will it be marked as broken.

This helps reduce false positives caused by temporary issues.
We recommend keeping this option enabled for more accurate results.

3. Email Notifications

If broken links are found, LinkCentral will send an email alert (once per day max) to the site administrator email configured under: Settings > General > Administration Email Address.

The email includes a summary of any broken links detected, along with a direct link to edit each one.
To prevent spam, only one notification is sent every 24 hours. We also recommend regularly checking your Links Overview page for the most up-to-date status.

4. Ignore Domains

Some domains block access when being programmatically scanned. This means that when the Broken Links Checker tries to validate a URL, the website may return a blocked response. This can incorrectly suggest that the link is broken, even though it’s actually working.

To prevent false positives, you can specify destination URLs or domains that should never be scanned. For example, Amazon links are known to block automated requests. By adding such domains to the ignore list, the Broken Links Checker will skip them entirely.

Monitor the Checker status

Scroll further down the settings page to view the Checker Status panel. Here you can see:

• Total links scanned within the current schedule
• Next scheduled scan
• Last completed schedule
• Number of broken links found

Viewing Broken Links

When broken links are detected, they will be listed on the Links Overview page. Each broken link will show a red warning icon. You can also filter the view to only show broken links using the filter bar.

Clicking the warning icon will show a detailed overview, including:

• The broken URL
• Whether the main link or a specific redirect rule is affected (including the rule number)
• The error type (e.g., timeout, 404, couldn’t resolve host)
• The date and time the error was detected

If you believe the link is not broken, you can click the “Ignore (mark as not broken)” link. This marks the link as not broken and changes the icon from red to gray. You can always undo this action.

Important: Once you update a link (either the URL or any other setting) and save it, any broken status will be cleared. The link will be automatically rechecked in the next scan schedule.

Frequently Asked Questions