DevDome Link Monitor: Broken Link Checker, Dead Link Checker, Broken Link Finder

DevDome Link Monitor is a broken link checker and dead link checker for WordPress. Find broken links, dead links and broken images in the saved content of published posts in public post types, excluding attachments. Use the broken link finder as an internal and external link checker. Edit an exact link URL across the posts containing it, or remove the link while keeping its anchor text. Link checks run on your server, with no cloud account or page or link limits. The built-in 404 monitor logs missing-page requests from visitors and bots, with separate human and bot hit counts. Review 404 errors, ignore paths, delete entries and export the log to CSV. Find broken links and missing images Use the broken link finder to check internal links and external links in one scan. It also checks image URLs in saved content to help you find broken images and missing images. The review table separates results into:

• Healthy.
• Broken.
• Redirected, with the final URL and hop count.
• Unverified, with the reason: timeouts, DNS failures, TLS errors or refused connections.
• Could not verify: 401, 403 after a full GET, 429 rate limited or 999 anti-bot responses.

As a dead link checker, the plugin requires two failures in checks separated in time before marking a URL broken. A link that recovers starts from a clean slate. What the broken link scanner checks The scanner reads saved content (post_content) from published posts in public post types, excluding attachments. It checks <a href> and <img src> URLs, including markup inside block comments. These sources are not scanned:

• Widgets, menus, theme options and customizer options.
• Post meta and custom fields.
• srcset candidates, oEmbed targets and iframe targets.
• Bodies of reusable or synced patterns that are not inlined in the post.
• Drafts, private content and scheduled content.

This is not a whole-site crawler. During a content audit, use its results to review links in the published content covered above. Replace links from the dashboard The review table provides these actions:

• Edit URL: write the new address into every post containing that exact link.
• Unlink: remove the link and keep its anchor text.
• Re-check now: check the URL again.
• Dismiss: set aside links you keep on purpose.
• Review redirects and their final destinations.

The search replace scope is limited to exact link URLs through Edit URL. It does not replace arbitrary text or other database values. Content changes go through WordPress normally, so revisions apply. You need edit permission on every affected post, and each change is recorded in an audit trail. Monitor 404 not found requests The built-in 404 monitor is always on. It records requests for missing URLs on your site, including requests that reach a 404 page:

• Requested path, with the query string removed.
• Hit count, first seen and last seen.
• Last referrer and, unless disabled, last user agent.
• Separate human and bot hit counts, based on known crawler patterns.

Use the log to see which missing URLs visitors and crawlers keep requesting. You can ignore paths, delete rows and export results to CSV. Old active entries purge automatically after 30, 90 or 180 days. Review 404 redirect suggestions Each 404 path can receive a redirect suggestion matched against your real post and page slugs. To redirect 404 requests, use the one-click action when DevDome Redirect Manager is active, or copy the suggested .htaccess rule. Review link health The Overview tab shows:

• Link health score.
• Number of links checked, healthy links, broken links and redirects.
• Human and bot totals from the 404 monitor.
• Health trend over the last 12 scans.

Use these results alongside your other SEO tools for the broken-link portion of an SEO audit or site audit. The score describes link health within the plugin's scan scope, not a complete assessment of your website. Run scans in the background Start, pause, resume or cancel a scan at any time. Scans run in small, resumable batches, driven by your browser while the screen is open or by WP-Cron. Low default budgets and per-host spacing limit each batch or tick to at most two links per host. Settings lets you adjust check timeout, posts per batch and links per batch, and configure the user agent and excluded domains. Optional weekly or monthly rescans can produce an email summary of newly broken links only. Email requires a connected DevDome account and is sent by DevDome, with counts only. How verification reduces false positives Sites may reject HEAD requests, block automated requests, require authentication, rate-limit scanners, return temporary server errors or time out. These responses need different treatment from a confirmed broken URL. Verification follows these rules:

• Request each URL with HEAD first.
• Send a size-capped GET of 128 KB when a server rejects or gates HEAD, and before recording any HEAD failure. Some servers mishandle HEAD while GET works.
• Follow redirects manually, up to 5 hops, with loop detection. Report the final URL and hop count.
• Require two failures separated in time, 15 seconds by default. Two failures within the same processing burst do not count as independent evidence.
• Keep timeouts, DNS failures, TLS errors and refused connections as "Unverified".
• Keep 401, 403 after a full GET, 429 and 999 responses as "Could not verify".

Unverified and Could not verify results never count as broken. This reduces false positives from temporary failures and access restrictions, but cannot identify every problem: a server returning HTTP 200 for a "page not found" page still counts as OK. AI and agent support On WordPress 6.9 and newer, the plugin registers WordPress Abilities covering the whole plugin:

• Read the link health summary, every checked link with its pages and every filter, or one link.
• Read the 404 log with every filter and get redirect suggestions.
• Start a full scan or recheck, pause, resume, cancel, and read progress and history.
• Recheck one link, replace a link URL in content, unlink or dismiss.
• Ignore or delete a 404, run the retention sweep and export data.
• Read and update settings, read error and change logs, dismiss the last error and recount the summary.

Compatible AI agents and MCP clients can discover and use these abilities when the site exposes them, for example through the official WordPress MCP Adapter. Every ability runs the same code as the plugin screens under the same capability checks. Content edits retain the per-post edit permission check.

1.7.6

• Agent answers for the link list, a single link, the link export, a recheck and an address edit now mask tokens, passwords and e-mail addresses found in a stored URL, anchor, error text or redirect target, as the 404 answers already did.
• Database guard: when a database query fails while the plugin works (a scan step, a settings save, an export, a REST call or an agent ability), the plugin now says so and changes nothing more, instead of reporting a clean result or writing over data it could not read. Settings and job state are read back after every write, so "saved" means saved.
• Shared DevDome library 1.7.11: on a subdirectory multisite, a site mapped to its own domain now connects as its own site instead of sharing the main site's DevDome account link.
• Shared DevDome library 1.7.12: a Cloudflare visitor address header is trusted only when the connection itself comes from a Cloudflare address, so a forged header from anywhere else is ignored.

1.7.5

• Shared DevDome library 1.7.10: the DevDome dashboard icons are printed through the WordPress escaping functions (WordPress.org review rule).
• Short description rewritten.

1.7.4

• Listing text updated: title, short description, tags and introduction.
• Settings: the DevDome Account card, the same as in the other DevDome plugins, explains what connecting sends before you press Connect; the Overview button now leads to it.
• Shared DevDome library 1.7.8: the one-time Report a bug hint is recorded through a nonce-checked request instead of on a page view.
• Shared DevDome library 1.7.9: the DevDome dashboard lists only real problems (a feature that is off, paused or not connected is no longer an issue) and no longer says Not monitored.

1.7.3

• Bundled DevDome library 1.7.6: if you connect a DevDome account from the DevDome Tools dashboard, the Connect card now says exactly what is shared, including the list of active DevDome plugins and their versions. Sites that were already connected, and sites that never connect, send nothing new. See External services.
• Listing text rewritten: new title, short description, tags and a restructured description. No change to how the plugin works.

1.7.2

• Updates now work when the plugin folder belongs to another system user (shared DevDome core 1.7.4): a folder installed from a root shell or by an AI agent used to fail every update with "Could not move the old version", and an uploaded zip kept the old version. The plugin is copied to a web-owned folder right before WordPress replaces it, the old folder is kept hidden and recorded so the DevDome Malware Scanner recognises it, and the update goes through the hub, the Plugins screen, bulk updates, uploads and automatic updates alike.

1.7.1

• Connect fix (shared DevDome core 1.6.6): the connect claim now waits up to 30 seconds and keeps the handshake for 20 minutes so a refresh retries it, the DevDome hub shows why a connect failed with a Try again link, and the verify file is served through a query form for hosts that answer /.well-known/ before WordPress.

1.7.0

• WordPress Abilities API: 23 abilities covering every feature (links, 404s, scans, edit URL, unlink, dismiss, 404 ignore and delete, purge, exports, settings, logs). Empty-input abilities refuse unexpected arguments cleanly.

1.6.0

• WordPress Abilities API support (WordPress 6.9+): six abilities for AI agents and MCP clients: get-link-summary, get-broken-links, get-404s, get-scan-progress, run-link-scan, recheck-link. Same code and capability checks as the plugin screens.

1.5.4

• Settings: every option now shows a one line hint under the control, with the info icon holding the full explanation, the same layout as DevDome Malware Scanner.
• DevDome Dashboard: installing another DevDome plugin from the dashboard no longer activates it, you activate it yourself from its card. Output escaping tightened.

1.5.3

• Shared DevDome library updated to core 1.6.3: the DevDome Dashboard now reads the current plugin catalog (names, descriptions, logos, links) from devdome.com once every 12 hours, and other DevDome plugins can be installed from WordPress.org in one click.

1.5.2

• First tab is now called Overview, in line with the other DevDome plugins. Old links to the Dashboard tab still open it.

1.5.1

• Scan history pruning now binds every id in its IN (...) lists through $wpdb->prepare().

1.5.0

• First WordPress.org release.
• Broken link scanner with a two-strike rule: a link is only called broken after two separate failures, and 401, 403, 429 and anti-bot answers are reported as blocked, never broken.
• Passive 404 monitor with human hits and bot hits kept apart, redirect suggestions on request, .htaccess rule copy and Redirect Manager hand-off, CSV export.
• Edit, unlink or dismiss a link from the list; every content change is verified against the saved post and needs edit rights on that post.
• Scans run in bounded chunks and finish on their own, with a closed browser and without visitors, and recover from an interrupted finish.
• Optional email summary of newly broken links, sent by DevDome to the connected account email, counts only.
• Outbound checks refuse private and reserved addresses and pin the resolved address to the connection; requires the cURL extension.