Description
Rockon Link Monitor finds broken internal and external links without adding a
large SEO suite to your site. Run a scan, see exactly which links are dead and
where they live, and jump straight to the editor to fix them.
Scans are manual. Nothing runs in the background, and no data ever leaves your
site except the requests used to check the links themselves.
What you get
- Scan published posts and pages.
- Check internal and external links.
- No limit on how many links a scan checks.
- Detect HTTP 404, 403, 500, 502, 503, timeouts, DNS failures and connection
errors. - Destinations that merely refuse automated requests are reported separately,
so bot blocking is not mistaken for a broken link. - See total links scanned, broken links, affected pages and the last scan date.
- Jump directly to the editor for each broken link.
- Batched scanning with a live progress bar, so a scan will not time out.
External services
This plugin relies on two kinds of external connection. Both are described in
full below.
1. The websites your content links to
Checking a link means asking the destination whether it still answers, so the
plugin sends an HTTP GET request to every URL it finds in your posts and pages.
This cannot be done locally: only the destination server can say whether a page
still exists.
- What is sent: the URL being checked, and a User-Agent header identifying the
plugin together with your site’s home URL. If the destination refuses that
first request with a 401, 403 or 429, one retry is sent using a generic
browser User-Agent, an Accept-Language header, and your site’s home URL as
the Referer. - When: only while you are running a scan that you started yourself from the
Link Monitor screen. The plugin schedules no background requests. - Who receives it: the operator of whichever third-party site you linked to.
These are not services chosen by this plugin, so no single terms or privacy
document covers them; each destination is governed by its own.
2. Freemius
The plugin bundles the Freemius SDK, provided by Freemius, Inc. It powers the
optional account connection and the delivery of separately distributed add-ons.
No feature of this plugin depends on it: link scanning works in full whether or
not you ever connect.
- What is sent: nothing at all unless you explicitly opt in. If you do opt in,
Freemius receives your site URL, your WordPress, PHP and plugin versions, the
administrator’s name and email address, and a list of active plugins and
themes. - When: at the moment you opt in, and periodically afterwards to check for
add-on updates. You can opt out at any time from the plugin’s Account screen. - Service provider: Freemius, Inc.
- Terms of Service: https://freemius.com/terms/
- Privacy Policy: https://freemius.com/privacy/
For developers
The scanner, repository and admin are separate classes, and the dashboard is
built entirely from hooks so an add-on can extend it without forking anything.
Filters: rockonlm_scan_settings, rockonlm_request_settings,
rockonlm_scan_candidates, rockonlm_posts_per_page, rockonlm_link_limit,
rockonlm_batch_size, rockonlm_fallback_link_limit,
rockonlm_fallback_time_budget, rockonlm_request_timeout,
rockonlm_request_args, rockonlm_browser_user_agent,
rockonlm_soft_statuses, rockonlm_blocked_is_broken, rockonlm_check_link,
rockonlm_scan_data, rockonlm_admin_rows, rockonlm_admin_row_actions,
rockonlm_admin_edit_link, rockonlm_admin_footer, rockonlm_admin_screen,
rockonlm_upgrade_url, rockonlm_capability.
Actions: rockonlm_loaded, rockonlm_activated, rockonlm_scan_completed,
rockonlm_admin_after_header, rockonlm_admin_stats,
rockonlm_admin_after_stats, rockonlm_admin_scan_sources,
rockonlm_admin_scan_options, rockonlm_admin_scan_actions,
rockonlm_admin_sidebar, rockonlm_admin_before_results,
rockonlm_admin_results_toolbar, rockonlm_admin_after_table,
rockonlm_admin_after_results.
Installation
- Install the plugin through Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin, or
upload therockon-link-monitorfolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen.
- Open Link Monitor in the admin menu and press Scan now.
There is nothing to configure. The first scan works straight after activation.
FAQ
-
Does the plugin scan my site automatically?
-
No. Every scan is started by you from the Link Monitor screen. The plugin
schedules no cron events and does no work in the background. -
What does it scan?
-
Published posts and pages, including both internal and external links found in
their content. -
How many links can one scan check?
-
There is no limit. A scan checks every link it finds. Developers who want a
ceiling of their own can set one with therockonlm_link_limitfilter, which
defaults to0, meaning unlimited. -
Will a large site time out?
-
No. Links are checked in batches of 25 over AJAX with a live progress bar, so no
single request has to do the whole scan, and posts are read a page at a time so
collecting the links does not depend on how many posts you have. Keep the tab
open until the bar finishes.Without JavaScript the form still works, but that scan has to run in a single
request, so it stops at 100 links or at a safe share of your PHP time limit,
whichever comes first. It saves what it checked and tells you it stopped early.
This is a technical limit of doing the whole job in one HTTP request; the
rockonlm_fallback_link_limit androckonlm_fallback_time_budgetfilters
adjust it. -
A link is reported as broken but works in my browser. Why?
-
Some servers block automated requests, or respond too slowly for the 8 second
request timeout. Destinations that answer 401, 403 or 429 to both our own user
agent and a browser one are listed separately as “Could not be verified” rather
than counted as broken. Use therockonlm_request_timeoutfilter to allow more
time. -
Who can run a scan?
-
Users with the
manage_optionscapability, which normally means administrators.
Therockonlm_capabilityfilter changes this. -
Does it modify my posts?
-
Never. The plugin only reports what it finds; you fix links in the editor
yourself. -
Where is the scan data stored, and is it removed on uninstall?
-
Results live in the
rockonlm_scan_dataWordPress option. No custom tables are
created. Deleting the plugin removes its options, so nothing is left behind.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Rockon Link Monitor” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
ContributorsTranslate “Rockon Link Monitor” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.2.0
- Removed the 500 link ceiling on manual scans. A scan now checks every link it
finds, and therockonlm_link_limitfilter defaults to unlimited. - Renamed every function, class, constant, option, hook, handle and asset to the
longerrockonlmprefix, so nothing collides with another plugin. Existing
scan results are carried over automatically on activation. - The scan form no longer passes the raw request array to the
rockonlm_request_settings filter, and admin query flags are cast to integers
before use. - Documented every external connection the plugin makes.
- Fixed a PHP warning raised by an anchor with an empty
hrefattribute.
1.1.0
- Reworked the scanner into a collect-then-check pipeline with filters at every
step, so add-ons can contribute their own link sources and checking strategy. - Added a full set of dashboard hooks for extensions.
- Better error labels: timeouts and DNS failures are now reported separately
from generic connection errors.
1.0.0
- First release.
