Beplus Link Status Scanner

Description

Beplus Link Status Scanner scans all your published content for broken links, redirects, and unreachable URLs. It runs in the background using WordPress Cron so your site performance is never impacted.

Key Features

• Automatic background scanning — Uses WP-Cron to scan posts and check links on a schedule you control.
• Multi-source scanning — Detects broken links in post content (<a href>), broken images (<img src>), Gutenberg block attributes (embed, button, image, file blocks), ACF custom fields, navigation menus, and widget areas.
• Link type badges — Every link is tagged by type (Anchor, Image, Block, ACF, Menu, Widget) so you know exactly where a broken URL came from.
• Broken link report — A clean admin table listing every broken link: URL, type, HTTP status code, the source it was found in, and when it was last checked.
• Status filters — Quickly filter links by All, Broken, Redirect, OK, Unchecked, or Ignored.
• Bulk actions — Re-check, ignore, or delete multiple links at once.
• Inline link replace — Swap any broken URL directly from the admin table without editing the post manually.
• Export CSV — Export your link data to a CSV file, filtered by status and link type, from the Export tab.
• Real-time progress — Scan and check operations show a live progress bar so you always know how far along the process is.
• Email notifications — Get a digest email listing new broken links after each cron check run.
• Configurable settings — Set check frequency (daily/weekly/monthly), request timeout, links per cron run, and excluded URL patterns.
• Dashboard widget — A quick summary of total, broken, redirect, and OK links on your WordPress dashboard.
• Scan on save — Newly published or updated posts are scanned immediately when saved.

How It Works

1. When a post is published or updated, Link Status Scanner extracts all URLs from the content — anchors, images, Gutenberg block attributes, and ACF fields — and stores them in the database.
2. A scheduled cron job also scans navigation menus and widget areas.
3. A second cron job checks each stored URL by making an HTTP HEAD request and recording the response code.
4. Broken links (4xx, 5xx, connection errors) are flagged in the admin report with their link type badge.
5. If email notifications are enabled, you receive a digest email listing newly broken links after each check run.

Privacy

Beplus Link Status Scanner sends HTTP requests to external URLs in order to check their status. No personal data is collected or shared.

About BePlus

This plugin is developed and maintained by BePlus, a WordPress and Shopify development studio with 10+ years of experience building themes and plugins for nonprofits and eCommerce brands.

Learn more at beplusthemes.com.

External services

This plugin connects to external URLs in order to perform its core function of checking link status.

When you run a scan (manually or via the scheduled WP-Cron check), Beplus Link Status Scanner sends an HTTP HEAD request (falling back to a GET request if HEAD is not supported) to every URL it finds linked from your own posts, pages, menus, and widgets. These destination URLs are determined entirely by your own site’s content — they are not a fixed third-party service chosen by the plugin — and requests are sent only to check whether each URL is reachable and to record its HTTP response status code.

No personal or user data is included in these requests: only the target URL and a generic User-Agent header identifying the plugin and WordPress version are sent.

Because checking the status of links is the plugin’s entire purpose, this outbound request behavior cannot be disabled independently — it can only be stopped by deactivating the plugin.