LinkedIn answers 999 to robots. Amazon answers 503. A site behind Cloudflare answers with a challenge page. None of those links are broken — they open fine in your browser. Onsite Link Verdict knows the difference, and it runs on your own server.
Free version: in review at the WordPress.org plugin directory. Days away, not weeks.
What people write about the checker they already have
“Constantly getting notifications of broken links that aren’t broken.”
1★ review, WordPress.org
“Out of dozens that I’ve had to take the time to check, I think one was actually broken.”
1★ review, WordPress.org
“I have used this plugin for years and it’s always been problematic, but now it gives every single link a false positive.”
1★ review, WordPress.org
This is not a bug in one plugin. It is what happens when software treats any unhappy response as proof of death. And the official answer, written by a support team with half a million installs, is this:
“To resolve the issue, you will need to contact the owner of the broken URL site and request that they allow our IP.”
Support reply, public forum
In other words: phone Amazon.
What counts as proof
Everything else goes to a separate tab called Couldn’t verify, with the reason in plain English instead of a status code.
Proof one
The server says the page is gone — 404 or 410 — and says it twice.
Some servers answer 404 to a HEAD request and 200 to a GET. So every 404 and 410 is confirmed with a second request, by a different method, before the link is accused. Healthy links still cost one request.
Proof two
Nothing answers at all, three checks in a row.
A domain that expired. Not a server that is busy, rate-limiting, or refusing robots today — those get another chance, and then a different verdict.
Your list of problems gets short. Short is the same thing as believable.
It does not touch your content
The free version tells you exactly which post, page or comment each link sits in, and links you straight to the editor. Nothing is rewritten behind your back — not on install, not on update, not ever without you clicking the button.
“No plugin, ever, should automatically change links/text/content on a site without express permission for every change.”
1★ review, after a competitor silently rewrote a site’s external links
It does not take your site down
Link checkers have a reputation with hosts, and it was earned — some hosting companies have banned them outright for resource use. So the limits here are hard numbers, and they are in the code, not in a promise.
Onsite Link Verdict Pro
One dead URL in forty posts is forty trips to the editor. Pro does that job in one pass — and shows you the whole list before it touches a single word.
Pro includes everything the free version does. It is the same plugin, with the mechanical work added.
You type the new address, and before anything happens you get every place the old one appears, with the surrounding text. Then you decide. There is an undo — and it refuses to run if you edited the post in the meantime.
Links that live inside a page builder or a shortcode are named and left alone, not silently mangled. And if a page still shows the old address after the replacement, you are told — instead of being told it worked.
One pattern per line. They stop appearing, on the next scan, for good.
A file that opens correctly in Excel, accents and all.
No card needed for the free version. No automatic plan upgrades. Cancel in one click.
Sold through Freemius, our merchant of record — VAT is added at checkout where it applies.
Requires WordPress 6.1 or later and PHP 7.4 or later.
Before you install anything
Every one of these is a decision, not a gap on a roadmap.