Link Checker Pro for WordPress

External crawling reduces work on the WordPress site

Link Checker Pro uses a service operated by the plugin developer to crawl a WordPress website as a visitor would. It checks internal and external URLs, then reports broken links and redirects found during the crawl. The external service handles the crawl, keeping the computation required on the WordPress site low. The add-on works with WordPress add-ons out of the box, works with Polylang, and may also work with WPML.

The site sends its URL and the fact that it uses WordPress to the external server, which returns the results. A hosting provider may block the crawler and prevent it from accessing the site. The crawler also cannot reach a local development site because it cannot access the local network.

Robots rules affect crawl pace and coverage

The crawler respects the site’s robots.txt rules, including the crawl-delay directive. Those rules can limit which pages it checks or how quickly it requests them, so the results describe pages the crawler could access.

Pro features extend checks to media and protected pages

• Check embedded internal and external images for broken documents.
• Check whether embedded YouTube videos are available.
• Schedule a check once a day and receive a summary by email.
• Export results as a CSV file for review or sharing.
• Use form login support to check protected pages, such as membership areas.
• Save results on the Link Checker server and fetch them again without running another check, including from different visitors or browsers.

The capability information lists these advanced checks and tools as unavailable in the free version, which is limited to 500 URLs.

Requirements and site access shape setup

Install and activate Link Checker in WordPress, open it from the admin area, and start a check for the site. For protected pages, provide the form login details they require. Enable the daily scheduler and email summary for recurring checks, then review the results or export them as CSV.

The stated requirements are WordPress 4.7 or newer and PHP 5.6 or newer. Before starting, confirm that the hosting environment allows the external crawler to access the site and that the site’s robots.txt rules permit the intended crawl.