WordPress Broken Link Checker — Background Scanning

SEO Forge scans every post on your site for broken links — internal and external — in the background, via WP Cron, on a schedule you configure. When broken links are found, you get an email notification and a dashboard widget showing the count. Each broken link has edit controls to fix it in place.

Why broken links hurt SEO

Broken outbound links leak PageRank, frustrate users, and signal to Google that your content isn’t maintained. Broken internal links are even worse — they create orphan pages, break navigation paths, and damage the internal linking structure that Google uses to understand your site’s hierarchy.

On a mature WordPress site with thousands of posts, broken links accumulate whether you notice them or not. External sites delete pages. Internal pages get renamed or moved. Every one is a potential SEO problem.

SEO Forge finds them all.

Background scanning

Instead of scanning every link on every page load (which would slow down your site), SEO Forge runs the broken link checker as a background job via WP Cron. You configure the interval:

Hourlyfor very large sites that change frequently
Dailytypical for news and content sites
Weeklytypical for small business sites
Monthlytypical for mostly-static sites

The scan runs without UI interaction. You see results in the admin when you next log in.

What gets checked

Internal links

Every <a href> pointing to a URL on your own domain. If the target is a WordPress post, page, or custom post type, SEO Forge verifies it exists and is published. If it’s a direct URL, SEO Forge makes an HTTP HEAD request to check the status.

External links

Every <a href> pointing to another domain. SEO Forge makes an HTTP HEAD request (with a browser-like user agent) and records the response code.

Images

Every <img src> on every page is checked. Broken image sources are flagged separately from text link errors.

Attachments and media

File downloads linked from content (PDFs, ZIPs, etc.) are checked for availability.

Redirects

Links that redirect through multiple hops are flagged (chained redirects) — these aren’t “broken” but they’re suboptimal for SEO.

What counts as broken

404 Not Foundthe target doesn’t exist
410 Gonethe target explicitly says it’s gone
500–599 Server errorsthe target domain is broken
Timeoutthe target didn’t respond within 30 seconds
DNS failurethe target’s domain doesn’t resolve
Blockedthe target blocks HEAD requests or our user agent

Each failure type is tagged separately so you can filter (e.g., “show me only 404s” or “show me only DNS failures”).

Cached results

Broken link results are cached with a configurable TTL (default: 30 days for working links, 7 days for broken links). Working links aren’t re-checked until the cache expires, which keeps scan times fast even on huge sites.

You can force a full re-scan from the dashboard if you suspect cached results are stale.

The broken links table

Once the scan completes, broken links appear in a table with:

The post where the link was found (with a direct edit link)
The broken URL
The type (internal, external, image, attachment)
The HTTP status (404, 500, timeout, etc.)
The date last checked
The anchor text
Edit and dismiss controls

Filter by

Status
Type
Post type
Post category
Date range

Sort by

Frequency (most-linked-to first)
Recency
Status code

Bulk actions

Dismiss (mark as “intentional, don’t report again”)
Remove link (strips the <a> tag, keeps the anchor text)
Replace with redirect (creates a redirect in the Redirect Manager)
Edit link in post

Email notifications

Configure email notifications in settings:

On every scan completionget a summary email every time the scan runs
Only on new broken linksonly notify when a link that was previously working is now broken
Weekly digesta Monday morning summary of broken links across all scans that week

Recipients can be multiple addresses (admin, SEO lead, content editor).

Integration with the Redirect Manager

When a broken internal link is found, SEO Forge offers a one-click path to create a redirect for it. This is especially useful after migrations or URL restructures where the same internal link appears on many pages.

Performance

The broken link checker is designed not to slow down your site. It:

Runs during WP Cron (typically during a user visit)
Uses HTTP HEAD requests (smaller than GET)
Caches results aggressively
Rate-limits requests to avoid hammering external domains
Sets a realistic user agent so CDNs and firewalls don’t block the scan

A site with 10,000 posts can be scanned fully in under 30 minutes of cumulative WP Cron runtime.

Ready to find and fix broken links?

Get SEO Forge — from $39/year →

The Broken Link Checker is included in every paid plan.