Dead Link Checker – SEO and 404 error Fix

Descrición

Broken links frustrate your visitors and hurt your search rankings. When someone clicks a link on your site and lands on a 404 page, they lose trust — and so does Google.

Dead Link Checker scans your WordPress posts and pages, finds broken links, and gives you a clear report so you can fix them quickly. It runs in the background without slowing down your site.

Whether you have a personal blog or a large content site, keeping your links healthy is one of the simplest things you can do for on-page SEO. This plugin handles the heavy lifting so you don’t have to check every link by hand.

How It Works

  1. Go to Dead Link Checker Dashboard in your WordPress admin.
  2. Click Scan Now to start scanning your content.
  3. The plugin checks every link in your posts and pages.
  4. Broken links, redirects, and slow responses show up in a visual report.
  5. Fix or dismiss links directly from the dashboard.

The scanner runs in small batches. This keeps your server running fast. It will not slow down your website for visitors.

Why Fixing a 404 Error Improves Your SEO

Search engines prefer websites with working links. Regular scans help keep your pages healthy.

  • The scanner checks both internal and external links.
  • It finds every dead link in your text.
  • It lists all 404 error status codes.
  • You can see redirects and response times.
  • The plugin works with both block and classic editors.
  • You can dismiss links to skip them in future scans.

How to Clean Up Your Website Links

  1. Go to the Dead Link Checker menu in your admin dashboard.
  2. Click the Scan Now button to start.
  3. The plugin will check your content in the background.
  4. Open the report to see the results.
  5. Edit your posts to fix the broken links.
  6. Dismiss links that do not need changes.

Pro Features

Take your link management further with Dead Link Checker Pro:

  • Extended Content Scanning – Scan Custom Post Types, Comments, Navigation Menus, Widgets, and Custom Fields (including ACF).
  • Page Builder Support – Full compatibility with Elementor, Divi, and WPBakery page builders.
  • Redirect Manager – Create 301, 302, and 307 redirects directly from the broken link report. Includes a hit counter and import/export functionality.
  • Email Notifications – Receive email alerts when new broken links are found. Set up weekly or monthly digest reports.
  • Export Reports – Download your broken link reports as CSV or JSON files for offline review or sharing with your team.
  • Multisite Support – Manage broken links across your entire WordPress multisite network.
  • Priority Support – Get dedicated help from the development team with faster response times.
  • Lifetime Updates – One-time purchase with lifetime access to plugin updates.

Learn more about Pro

Free vs Pro Comparison

  • Post & Page Scanning – Free ✓ | Pro ✓
  • Internal & External Links – Free ✓ | Pro ✓
  • Visual Dashboard – Free ✓ | Pro ✓
  • Dismiss Links – Free ✓ | Pro ✓
  • Scan History – Free ✓ | Pro ✓
  • Custom Post Types – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • Comments & Menus – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • Page Builder Support – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • Redirect Manager – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • Email Notifications – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • CSV/JSON Export – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • Multisite Support – Free ✗ | Pro ✓
  • Priority Support – Free ✗ | Pro ✓

Capturas

Instalación

  1. Upload the plugin folder to your plugins directory.
  2. Activate the plugin in your WordPress admin.
  3. Open the Dead Link Checker page.
  4. Click Scan Now to start checking your site.

Preguntas frecuentes

How does a dead link or broken link hurt my SEO?

Search engines want to give users a good experience. A site with many errors gets crawled less often. This hurts your visibility. Fixing every 404 error keeps your rankings safe.

Will this scanner cause server errors?

No. The tool checks links in small groups. It uses very little server power. Your website stays fast for all visitors.

Can I check external links for errors?

Yes. The plugin checks links pointing to other sites. It also checks internal links on your own site.

Does it find 404 error status codes?

Yes. It reports all 404 error pages. It also flags other server issues like 500 or 403 status codes.

Comentarios

19 de Xullo, 2026
It is incredible plugin that within just few minutes reveals whether: I have any url links that don-t work; I have any url incorrect links – such as dot at the end by mistake that creates dead link; I love that it also checks url links of my images: I accidently deleted 8 images in Media Library and this plugin revealed that to me. I could lose a reader or donator because of that. INCREDIBLE! Once plugin revealed me broken (dead) url links, I can see exactly from which posts are broken links which is AMAZING! I can correct the links on scanning dashboard of their plugin: and correct it there by adding new url, redirection url or dismiss or correct it in my post. Their Scanning dashboard is so powerfully assembled: I just click the button scanning and the plugin starts to scan each page, each post, each menu url link even, also internal-external-media url links; After scanning ends, it is incredible structure of view. I can see so clearly the correct links down the row which is very easy to use the plugin. Or I can click on the tabs above and choose the option whether I desire to check broken url links instantly by skipping correct checked ones; Beautiful colors, very good structured rows and so in visually clear that I love to use this plugin. My past website story I didn-t have this plugin or that kind of plugin for my previous website that was giant in amount of content I had. As well giant in amount of views. I thought that all the url links were working perfectly until one day I clicked on the one post or image by accident. I discovered that the link was broken. There was nothing. I got so scared because with those broken links I was loosing viewers and customers. I remember that I had to go through many posts manually to check whether other url links works perfectly AND I HAD A LOT OF WORK WITH THAT for DAYS. How could I have broken dead url links? I was doing a lot of polishing of my website or changing products offers I was making. Each post had other posts or products url links. Whenever I did some post change or removed one product (replacing with new one), I was not aware that there was collapse of url links. All the posts that lead to that product had dead links. As well posts. I was all panicked and had to do a lot of one by one post research work. BUT NOW, WITH THIS AMAZING, PERFECTLY CREATED PLUGIN, I don-t need to worry again: Whether I have any broken url link – I can check it any day or time I want; This plugin does all the work for me – I don-t need to go through each post, one by one to see whether there are any broken links. Url links are important to keep the customer or reader, to direct them to the other post or product and for merging with Google robot to come to the top of the Google through clicks. And if they are not correct, then Google-s robots don-t take us to the top of the Google. As well clients or readers don-t take us seriously or they quickly remove from the website. Who wants to have dead page, post or image? Nobody. FOR THIS REASON THIS PLUGIN IS EXCEPTIONAL. WORKS LIKE A CHARM. IT IS SO WELL STRUCTURED AND HELPS! NO HARD WORK ANYMORE TO KEEP THE WEBSITE URL RUNNING, WITHOUT ANY DEATH. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. VERY GOOD CREATORS. GOOD JOB. VERY HELPFUL. Suzana
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Colaboradores e desenvolvedores

“Dead Link Checker – SEO and 404 error Fix” é un software de código aberto. As seguintes persoas colaboraron con este plugin.

Colaboradores

Rexistro de cambios

1.0.6

  • Tweak: Added a “Copy” icon badge in the URL column to easily copy anchor text.
  • Tweak: Changed “View Source” icon to an external link icon for better consistency.

1.0.5

  • Contextual Bulk Actions: Conditional options display based on active status tab (e.g. hides Restore in active tabs, Dismiss in Dismissed tab).
  • User-Friendly Bulk Notice: Clearer feedback message with plurals and fallback when no state changes occur.
  • Synchronized Toast & Reload: Extended toast visibility to 5s and delayed page refresh to 4s to make notifications fully readable.
  • Unlinked Source Titles: Converted source title to normal text (unlinked) to prevent misclicks.
  • Dedicated Edit & View Icons: Rendered pencil and eye dashicon buttons next to the title that open in a new window/tab.
  • Ellipsis Truncation: CSS single-line truncation for long source titles.
  • URL Display Limit: Slightly increased displayed URL length threshold from 50 to 80 characters.

1.0.4

  • Fixed wpdb::prepare query missing placeholder notice.
  • Added ‘Recheck’ and ‘Edit’ buttons to link actions with ‘Upgrade to Pro’ prompt.
  • Added ‘Export’ button dropdown (CSV & JSON) as a PRO preview feature.
  • Added ‘Notifications’ tab in Settings displaying disabled email notification options for PRO preview.
  • Replaced native browser confirm alerts with stylized custom HTML modals across the dashboard.

1.0.3

  • Improved UI consistency: border-radius, height, padding, and spacing now match across all admin pages.
  • Replaced hardcoded border-radius values with CSS token variables for global consistency.
  • Normalized settings page inputs and selects to uniform 32px height with consistent focus styles.
  • Standardized Tools tab maintenance buttons to fixed 32px height and 150px width.
  • Improved header action buttons: explicit 44px height with proper secondary/primary button distinction.
  • Fixed action button and stat icon radius to use design tokens instead of hardcoded values.
  • Removed remaining !important overrides from check-column, clear-filters, and no-items cell.
  • Added white-space: nowrap to status badges to prevent wrapping on narrow columns.
  • Added sortable column anchor padding for full-cell click area.

1.0.2

  • Removed edit button and edit link functionality from the dashboard.
  • Removed recheck option and its functionality.
  • Removed images option from link type settings.
  • Added “Upgrade to Pro” submenu page with feature highlights and comparison table.
  • Centered help page content for improved readability.
  • Fixed SQL prepared statement warnings for WordPress Plugin Check compliance.
  • Fixed unescaped database parameter warnings in scanner and uninstall files.
  • Rewrote readme.txt for WordPress.org guideline compliance.
  • Updated plugin name to “Dead Link Checker” for consistency.

1.0.1

  • Maintenance release.
  • Updated readme for WordPress.org compliance.

1.0.0

  • Initial release.