Hi @mattrock1 ,
I hope you’re doing well.
It usually depends on how LinkedIn manages blocking the bots, and this is quite normal behavior for external links like LinkedIn or Facebook.
You can check, for example, the links that the Broken Link Checker tries to skip on the cloud version – https://wpmudev.com/docs/wpmu-dev-plugins/broken-link-checker/#scanned-skipped
That being said, could you please share an example of a LinkedIn URL so we can test and confirm if it’s related to the same?
I hope to hear back from you soon.
Best Regards,
Williams Valerio
Sure thing, Williams. I appreciate you taking a look at it!
Here’s a couple of examples of LinkedIn URL’s that were reported as 404’s in my Local BLC dashboard today:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-olfert-90742766/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameesandhu/
The brunt of the websites I’m currently managing are B2B and linkedin links (and other social media platforms) within posts are the norm. Ensuring these links are valid (because they can change, resulting in legit 404’s) is important. Skipping these isn’t an option for me.
Cheers, and best regards to you as well!
Hello @mattrock1
Thanks for the information. I was able to replicate the error messages with these links, but if you open each one of them using an incognito window, you will see that these links shows a “Page Not Found” message, so BLC would see the same and throw a 404 warning. Now, it’s possible that, for someone that is logged in into LinkedIn, that they will be able to see these profiles, but a plugin like BLC will not be able to see it. If you can confirm that these links works under certain conditions, you can ignore the alerts, but consider that most visitors will not be able to see those profiles.
It seems that LinkedIn may hide some profile pages, perhaps by the profile owner demand. If you check this profile using an incognito window, you will see that it loads without issues, and in this case, Local BLC will not detect it as broken: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella
Kind regards,
Jair.
Thanks for the heads up, Jair. I didn’t realize LinkedIn links (or at least some, like the ones in the example at the very least) were inaccessible if not logged in. That’s news to me! And good to know. Thanks for shining light on (and ultimately resolving) my issue. I appreciate it. Cheers!
