Find and fix broken links in WordPress, quietly.
To find broken links in WordPress, check your site with a link checker or crawler, and look at the pages Google reports as not found in Search Console. Then fix each one where the link is: update it, redirect the old address, or remove it.
Links² is the broken link checker we’re planning, to do the finding for you on a schedule, in the background. We’re building it next, and it’s not available yet.
- Planned
- Broken Link Checker
- None yet
- WordPress.org
- Google Search Console. The Page indexing report lists addresses Google tried and got “Not found (404)”. Inspecting one can show a page that links to it, where Google knows one.
- A crawler. A desktop SEO crawler follows every link on your site from your own computer and lists the ones that fail, with nothing installed in WordPress.
- A WordPress plugin. A link checker plugin scans your posts, pages and menus from inside WordPress and lists failures in the dashboard.
- Your own 404s. If a redirect or logging plugin records not-found visits, the most visited dead addresses are the ones to fix first.
Check after anything that changes addresses: a new permalink structure, a theme change, a migration, or deleting old posts.
A link to your own page that moved
Update the link in the post or menu to the new address. Add a 301 redirect from the old address too, for links elsewhere you can’t edit.
A link to your own page that’s gone
Remove the link or point it at the closest page that still exists. If there is a real replacement, redirect the old address to it. If not, let it return a 404: Google says it prefers a proper 404 or 410 for a page that’s gone, rather than a page that pretends to exist.
A link to another site that’s gone
Find where the content moved, link to a different source, or remove the link. If it was a citation, an archived copy can stand in.
A broken image
Re-upload the image to the Media Library, or remove it from the post.
Not on their own, according to Google. On whether 404 errors affect a site’s ranking, Google’s Search Central blog says: “If some URLs on your site 404, this fact alone does not hurt you or count against you in Google’s search results.” (2 May 2011, still published, checked 25 October 2026.)
Google’s crawling documentation (updated 4 February 2026) adds that Google doesn’t index addresses that return a 4xx status, and removes ones already indexed. So a page that has gone missing by mistake drops out of search, and every link to it stops working for readers.
That is the real reason to fix them: a reader who follows a dead link leaves the page they were reading, and a page you care about that returns 404 can’t be found.
- Check your site’s links on a schedule, in the background.
- A report of what’s broken and where.
- A bulk fix, for dealing with many broken links at once.
A report and a bulk fix, and nothing else. We’ll add detail to this page as the scope is settled, and we won’t list a feature here before we’ve decided to build it.
Broken Link Checker, from WPMU DEV, has 500,000+ active installs on WordPress.org and a rating of 76 out of 100; 133 of its 604 reviews are one-star (checked 25 October 2026). Its listing offers two engines: a cloud-based checker, which it describes as giving “better performance and reduced server load”, and a local engine that runs on your own server.
Links² is planned as a smaller alternative that runs its checks in the background on a schedule. Like every ² plugin, it will be benchmarked against the plugin it replaces before we say anything about speed.
Links² will be sold the way Calendar² is: a free plugin on WordPress.org that does the job properly, and a Pro licence for the extras some sites need. There’s no price yet, and we won’t publish one until there is something to buy.
- You pay for the licence and nothing else: no commission, no paid support tier.
- No upsell banners or “Powered by” credits in your dashboard or on your site.
- The free version is complete. Pro adds features; it doesn’t unlock the ones every site needs.
- It will be benchmarked against Broken Link Checker, and the method published with the results so you can repeat it.
Read the licensing rules we hold every ² plugin to.
- Features: our plugin suite plan (17 October 2026). Plans can change before release; this page will change with them.
- “Do 404 errors hurt my site?”: developers.google.com, Google Search Central blog, 2 May 2011, checked 25 October 2026.
- How HTTP status codes affect Google’s crawlers: developers.google.com, Google’s documentation, updated 4 February 2026, checked 25 October 2026.
- Broken Link Checker: wordpress.org, WordPress.org, version 2.4.15, checked 25 October 2026.
Want to know when Links² is out?
Email us and we’ll tell you when Links² is out. Tell us how big your site is and what you check for, and it will shape what we build.