Marco Beierer

<p>The <a href="https://www.marcobeierer.com/tools/link-checker/pro" rel="nofollow ugc">Link Checker</a> for WordPress uses an external service to crawl your website and find broken links and images on your website.</p>
<p>In contrast to search engine tools like the Google Search Console, which only show if a URL on your website is not reachable, it does not matter for the Link Checker if the links leads to an internal or external URL. The Link Checker will find all dead links.</p>
<p>The Link Checker works for every plugin out of the box. The computation costs for your website is also very low because the crawler does the heavy work and just acts like a normal visitor, who visits all pages of you website once.</p>
<h4>Limitations of the free version</h4>
<p>The Link Checker can be used for free, but the free version is limited. You can check websites with up to 500 URLs. Advanced features like image or video checks, CSV export, scheduler support, and form login support aren’t available in the free version.</p>
<p>The service cannot be offered free of charge for larger websites because the crawling is done by servers operated by the plugin developer and renting and maintaining these servers isn’t cheap.</p>
<h4>Videos</h4>
<p>You can find videos about the Link Checker on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rUFDp09tjs&list=PL5VYcNma6nfxIrlbpz0f1avXT_JIrUZA1" rel="nofollow ugc">Link Checker for WordPress playlist on YouTube</a>.</p>
<span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8rUFDp09tjs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=PL5VYcNma6nfxIrlbpz0f1avXT_JIrUZA1" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span>
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Simple setup</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Works out of the box</strong> with all WordPress plugins.</li>
<li><strong>Low computation costs</strong> for your webserver.</li>
<li>Lists all broken links and redirects on your website.</li>
<li>Support for Polylang (probably also WPML) sites.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Technical Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Respects your robots.txt file (also the crawl-delay directive).
<ul>
<li>You can use the user-agents MB-LinkChecker to control the crawler.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>Additional Features of Link Checker Pro</h4>
<ul>
<li>Check if embedded internal and external <strong>images</strong> are broken.</li>
<li>Check if embedded <strong>YouTube videos</strong> are broken.</li>
<li>Scheduler to <strong>automatically check a website</strong> once a day and get a summary report by email.</li>
<li>The result can be exported as CSV file.</li>
<li>Form login support to check protected pages like membership areas.</li>
<li>The result is saved on the Link Checker server so that it can be fetched multiple times without requiring a recheck. For example from different users or with different browsers.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Upcoming Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Support for checking the availability of videos, CSS files and JS files.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Technical Requirements</h4>
<ul>
<li>Works with <strong>WordPress 4.7 or newer</strong> on <strong>PHP 5.6 or newer</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Use of an External Server</h4>
<p>The Link Checker uses an external server, operated by the developer of the plugin, to crawl your website and detect broken links. This means, that there is some communication between your website and the server. The only data that is communicated to the external server by your website is the URL of your website and the fact that you are using WordPress. The server than crawlers your website (as a normal visitor does) and answers with a list of the found broken links.</p>


Link Checker Pro

EDITED REVIEW: 2021.03.10 
The free plugin works, but stops before it can finish being useful. 500 links is simply not enough for a free version. It doesn't provide a free tier that's functional for most medium-sized websites. You end up having to buy it to actually use it. That makes this more of an advertisement than an actual plugin. I'm using a different plugin.

EDITED 2021.03.11
See my reply dated today.

	EDIT: The free plugin only checks 500 links. This is entirely useless, even for medium-sized sites.
	EDIT: Plugin registration consists of link allotments, with the minimum being 25K links checked in one go for ~50 Euros. It goes up drastically from there because Marco's server is the one doing the crawling.
	Most target websites are small, hosted on huge commercial properties optimized for WordPress. Additionally, crawling the local site may not be as optimal as scraping each post's content field for links and storing results locally.
	My server should be the one doing the work. If my server is doing the work, you can't expect me to pay by the link for a service my server is doing. Period.
	An example of a per unit subscription model that works is Mailchimp. Their servers are doing the work in a trusted secure environment so that my web host box doesn't become a shadow spambot. Offloading that service to mailchimp is not sketchy, and their terms are more than generous for small to mid-sized website admins, with a free tier that is actually commodious. That's not what's happening with this plugin.
	It checks every link on every page, even footer links that repeat across the entire site, so if you have a link like "theme created by...", that link counts on every page against your priced link count. Absurd.
	Worse, it counts a number of known valid links as broken.
	WordPress plugins in the .org library should offer a reasonable modicum of usefulness out of the gate. It should not seem hampered to the site admin. The pro version should offer additional capabilities that make the free plugin seem more complete. This plugin offers only a glimpse of what the paid plugin might do if you are willing to pay 45 euros minimum to check 25K links. You want to check more links? Buy more tokens.
	EDIT: Given the Author's (Marco Beierer) balanced response, I'll say this would better serve the WP community and Marco himself by:

 	scraping post content directly for links rather than crawling, 
	removing the tier caps -- including for the free version -- and then 
	Price the pro version between $50 and $100 for a single-tier paid version that also includes image and youtube link checking.
	Also for the pro version, add the ability to check all site menu links, sidebar/footer/widget links, post content for custom post-type links, custom field links, etc.

This would give the expected additional capability along with unrestricted link checking found in the free version.

A great plugin makes the free-plugin adopter feel like they're getting such a bargain they feel guilty for not supporting the plugin with either a donation or an upgrade to the pro version.

Bait and Switch - Pretty much forced to buy if you want to use.

An easy to use link checker for WordPress to detect broken links and images on your website.

Syed Balkhi

benjaminprojas

AIOSEO Plugin Team

<p>Broken links hurt your SEO and send visitors to dead 404 pages. Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO scans your whole WordPress site for broken links and shows you exactly which ones to fix. It checks internal links, external links, broken images, and video links, then lets you fix or remove them in a few clicks without editing each post by hand.</p>
<p>This free plugin connects to your AIOSEO account and scans up to 250 internal links every month at no cost, with credits that renew each month. Upgrade to a paid subscription to scan more internal and external links, monitor more frequently, and cover larger sites. <a href="https://aioseo.com/pricing-broken-link-checker/?utm_source=wprepo&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=liteplugin" rel="nofollow ugc">See Broken Link Checker pricing and upgrade here.</a></p>
<h4>🔗 Find Broken Internal and External Links</h4>
<p>Broken Link Checker monitors every internal link and external link on your WordPress website and reports which links work and which are broken. It crawls your content on a schedule and records the status of each link: a working 200 response, a 301 or 302 redirect, or a broken 404. You get a clear list of broken links to fix, so dead links never sit on your pages unnoticed.</p>
<h4>🎥 Check Broken Video Links on YouTube, Vimeo, and More</h4>
<p>Video links break in a way that a normal link check misses. A YouTube or Vimeo page can still load and return a working status long after the video was deleted, set to private, or removed by the uploader. Broken Link Checker auto-detects video links and verifies that the video behind each link still exists. It checks the video itself across YouTube, Vimeo, and more than ten other platforms, then flags the ones that are gone so you can swap in a working video. This keeps tutorials, reviews, and any post built around an embedded or linked video from quietly going stale.</p>
<h4>🖼️ Detect Broken Images</h4>
<p>Broken Link Checker also finds broken images. If an image file was moved, renamed, or deleted, the plugin reports the broken image URL next to your broken links so you can replace it before visitors land on a missing graphic.</p>
<h4>☁️ Cloud-Based Scanning That Does Not Slow Down Your Site</h4>
<p>Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO runs as a cloud service connected to your AIOSEO account, so the link scanning happens on our servers instead of yours. Other broken link checker plugins crawl from your own server, which can spike resource usage, get your hosting account flagged, or cause your server IP to be blocked. With cloud-based link scanning, your site speed stays the same and your hosting provider has no reason to throttle you, even on large sites with thousands of links.</p>
<h4>🎯 Granular Control Over What Gets Scanned</h4>
<p>You decide what Broken Link Checker monitors. Choose which post types to scan, such as pages, posts, and custom post types, and which post statuses to include, such as published, draft, or pending review. This keeps the scan focused on the content that matters and your link credits spent where they count.</p>
<h4>🚫 Exclude URLs You Do Not Want Checked</h4>
<p>Some links should not be checked at all. Affiliate links, tracking redirects, and third-party URLs that block automated requests can show up as false broken links. Broken Link Checker lets you exclude specific URLs and domains so your broken link report stays accurate.</p>
<h4>🛠️ Fix Broken Links Without Leaving WordPress</h4>
<p>Finding broken links is only half the job. Broken Link Checker lets you fix them straight from the dashboard. Edit a link inline to point it at the correct URL, unlink it, or remove it, and the change is written back to your post automatically. You can clear out many broken links in a single sitting instead of opening each post one at a time.</p>
<p>Broken links are also marked in red on the frontend with the Broken Links Highlighter, so they are easy to spot, and the plugin can stop search engines from following broken links while you work through them. If you use the AIOSEO Redirects feature, you can send a broken link straight to a working URL with a redirect.</p>
<h4>🏢 Who Uses Broken Link Checker</h4>
<p>Broken Link Checker works for any WordPress site that links out or links internally:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Bloggers and publishers</strong> – keep years of posts free of dead links and broken video embeds.</li>
<li><strong>eCommerce stores</strong> – catch broken product links, broken images, and supplier URLs.</li>
<li><strong>Affiliate marketers</strong> – find broken affiliate links before they cost you commissions.</li>
<li><strong>Agencies and freelancers</strong> – monitor client sites and fix broken links from one place.</li>
<li><strong>Local businesses</strong> – make sure menu, booking, and map links keep working.</li>
</ul>
<h4>📋 Full Broken Link Checker Feature List</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://aioseo.com/features/broken-link-checker/?utm_source=wprepo&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=liteplugin" rel="nofollow ugc">Broken Link Checker</a> – scan your whole WordPress site for broken links and fix them from one dashboard.</li>
<li>Internal link checker – monitor every internal link between your posts and pages.</li>
<li>External link checker – check outbound links to other websites for 404 errors.</li>
<li>Broken video link checker – verify videos on YouTube, Vimeo, and 10+ platforms still exist.</li>
<li>Broken image detector – find images that no longer load.</li>
<li>Redirect detection – see which links return a 301 or 302 redirect.</li>
<li>Cloud-based scanning – link checks run on AIOSEO servers, not your server.</li>
<li>Scheduled automatic scans – links are rechecked on a regular schedule.</li>
<li>Inline link editing – fix or update a broken link without opening the post editor.</li>
<li>Unlink and remove – clear out dead links in one click.</li>
<li>Broken Links Highlighter – broken links are marked in red on the frontend.</li>
<li>AIOSEO Redirects integration – redirect a broken link to a working URL.</li>
<li>Granular post type control – choose which post types and statuses to scan.</li>
<li>URL and domain exclusions – skip affiliate links, trackers, and URLs you do not want checked.</li>
<li>Link status filters – filter links by good, broken, redirect, or not yet checked.</li>
<li>Broken link count column – see broken link counts in the AIOSEO Details post column.</li>
<li>Link Distribution dashboard widget – view link health from your WordPress dashboard.</li>
<li>Media link checking – index and check media file URLs.</li>
<li>Second-chance rechecks – broken links are verified again client-side to reduce false positives.</li>
<li>Free monthly link credits – scan up to 250 internal links every month for free.</li>
</ul>
<h4>🛡️ Built by the Team at AIOSEO</h4>
<p>Broken Link Checker is built by AIOSEO, the team behind the All in One SEO plugin used on more than 3 million WordPress websites. The same focus on practical, results-driven SEO goes into keeping your links healthy and your visitors out of 404 pages.</p>
<h4>🔎 A Better Way to Check Broken Links Than Ahrefs, Screaming Frog & Other Tools</h4>
<p>If you have looked for a way to find broken links, you have probably tried tools like Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Dr. Link Check, or Dead Link Checker. Those tools can crawl a site, but they run outside WordPress, so you copy URLs back and forth and fix every broken link by hand in the editor. Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO lives inside your WordPress dashboard. It finds broken links, broken images, and dead video links, and it fixes them in place. Because the scanning runs in the cloud, it does this without loading your server the way an on-site crawler plugin does.</p>
<h4>Credits</h4>
<p>This plugin is created by <a href="https://benjaminrojas.net/" title="Benjamin Rojas" rel="friend nofollow ugc">Benjamin Rojas</a> and <a href="https://syedbalkhi.com/" title="Syed Balkhi" rel="friend nofollow ugc">Syed Balkhi</a>.</p>
<h4>Branding Guideline</h4>
<p>AIOSEO® is a registered trademark of Semper Plugins LLC. When writing about the WordPress SEO plugin by AIOSEO, please use the following format.</p>
<ul>
<li>AIOSEO (correct)</li>
<li>All in One SEO (correct)</li>
<li>AIO SEO (incorrect)</li>
<li>All in 1 SEO (incorrect)</li>
<li>AISEO (incorrect)</li>
</ul>
<h4>What’s Next</h4>
<p>If you like our Broken Link Checker plugin, then consider checking out our other projects:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://aioseo.com/" title="AIOSEO" rel="friend nofollow ugc">AIOSEO</a> – The Best WordPress SEO plugin & toolkit to improve your SEO rankings in search results.</li>
<li><a href="https://optinmonster.com/" title="OptinMonster" rel="friend nofollow ugc">OptinMonster</a> – Get more email subscribers with the most popular conversion optimization plugin for WordPress.</li>
<li><a href="https://wpforms.com/" title="WPForms" rel="friend nofollow ugc">WPForms</a> – #1 drag & drop online form builder for WordPress (trusted by 5 million sites).</li>
<li><a href="https://www.monsterinsights.com/" title="MonsterInsights" rel="friend nofollow ugc">MonsterInsights</a> – See the stats that matter and grow your business with confidence. Best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.seedprod.com/" title="SeedProd" rel="friend nofollow ugc">SeedProd</a> – Create beautiful landing pages with our powerful drag & drop landing page builder.</li>
<li><a href="https://wpmailsmtp.com" rel="nofollow ugc">WP Mail SMTP</a> – Improve email deliverability for your contact form with the most popular SMTP plugin for WordPress.</li>
<li><a href="https://rafflepress.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">RafflePress</a> – Best WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow traffic and social followers.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.smashballoon.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Smash Balloon</a> – #1 social feeds plugin for WordPress – display social media content in WordPress without code.</li>
<li><a href="https://wpcode.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WPCode</a> – Must have WordPress code snippet management plugin to help you future-proof website customization (trusted by 1.5 million sites).</li>
<li><a href="https://duplicator.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Duplicator</a> – Popular WordPress backup and migration plugin used by over 1 million websites.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.pushengage.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Push Engage</a> – Connect with visitors after they leave your website with the leading web push notification plugin.</li>
<li><a href="https://trustpulse.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">TrustPulse</a> – Add real-time social proof notifications to boost your store conversions by up to 15%.</li>
<li><a href="https://searchwp.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">SearchWP</a> – The most advanced custom WordPress search plugin to improve WordPress search quality.</li>
<li><a href="https://affiliatewp.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">AffiliateWP</a> – #1 affiliate management plugin for WordPress. Add a referral program to your online store.</li>
<li><a href="https://wpsimplepay.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WP Simple Pay</a> – #1 Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. Start accepting one-time or recurring payments without a shopping cart.</li>
<li><a href="https://easydigitaldownloads.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Easy Digital Downloads</a> – The best WordPress eCommerce plugin to sell digital products (eBooks, software, music, and more).</li>
<li><a href="https://www.wpcharitable.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WPCharitable</a> – Top-rated WordPress donation and fundraising plugin for WordPress.</li>
<li><a href="https://sugarcalendar.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Sugar Calendar</a> – A simple event calendar plugin for WordPress that’s both easy and powerful.</li>
</ul>
<p>Visit <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/" title="WPBeginner" rel="friend nofollow ugc">WPBeginner</a> to learn from our <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/category/wp-tutorials/" title="WordPress Tutorials" rel="friend nofollow ugc">WordPress Tutorials</a> and find out about the <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/category/plugins/" title="Best WordPress Plugins" rel="friend nofollow ugc">best WordPress plugins</a>.</p>


Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO – Find & Fix Broken Internal, External & Video Links


The moment a plugin asks me to connect to an external service, I deactivate it.



What is the point of adding a plugin to help with a LOCAL issue that does NOT need to be dealt with OUTSIDE WP??


Nope.


Do not install this module because it does not do the right thing. They don't inform you about the features and options in advance, precisely because they don't have time to help you. The free version does not completely help you to solve the problem with broken links. There are free modules that already do the job much better! I'm sorry because I wasted my time with AIOSEO (correct) or All in One SEO (correct), but not AIO SEO (incorrect) or All in 1 SEO (incorrect) or AISEO (incorrect). Who does the Branding Guideline help? Too much self-esteem and too little interest in the community!


It is not an internal tool, the data is outsourced!

Broken link checker that finds and fixes broken links, broken images, and dead video links to protect your site's SEO.

Link Checker Pro vs Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO – Find & Fix Broken Internal, External & Video Links