Configuration settings

To have the settings configured, simply go to the Settings, then to Link Checker.

And you can stop search engine spiders from following the broken links through the “General” tab. So, doing that is highly recommended too.

Through the “Look for links in” tab, you have the option to configure angles where this plugin should check to detect dead links. If you have a big, well-loaded blog, you’re advised to start your scan only with the posts area.

I Have Detected Broken Links! What is the Next Step?

After running the broken link checker plugin for a certain period of time, you’ll find broken links. If you so wish, you can choose to access the most recent report under the Tools tab, and then Broken links anytime.

You can select all of the comments and choose to update, or unlink using the navigation menu. For posts on your blog, it’s highly recommended you don’t unlink but rather update; this will ensure that the probity of your original post is maintained.

The most awesome feature of this plugin is the potentiality to detect and fix redirections. Over time, several people change their redirections and domains. Some people change the structures of their permalinks.

This plugin examines all redirections, and with the click of a button, the redirected links can be fixed and updated.

For all of your affiliate links, don’t bother fixing them as they’ll show as redirected links too. If you ever changed permalink structures or domain names, or moved your site from one blogging platform to another, you’ll find the Broken Link Checker plugin indispensable.

The duration it takes this plugin to be done fixing all redirected and broken links is from 15 – 45 minutes depending on how many links you have on your website. I’ve helped people detect and fix hundreds of broken links and even more on their blogs using the plugin.

Important note: The Broken Link Checker plugin generates too many tables in your database as a result of which your database size is increased. Thus, once you’re done fixing dead links with the tool, remember to disable it and then leverage the WP-DB Manager plugin to remove all tables created by the Broken Link Checker plugin.

Whether you are using WordPress or any other Content Management System (CMS), dead links generally have a negative impact on your SEO – meaning – it hurts your rankings. So, when you’re running a search engine optimization audit for your website, always remember to use the Broken Link Checker plugin.

Aside from using the Broken Link Checker plugin, you can also detect dead links on your site using the Dead Link Checker Tool (online) or Ahrefs.