Broken link reports 403 forbidden for working link to YouTube

  • I don’t understand why the last link on this page is struck out, even though it is functioning. The broken link report shows a status 403 forbidden for that link, but I can’t see why.
    BTW: When I added the link, I marked it as external and the HTML-Code in Gutenberg showed the code target=”_blank”, but when the page is published, that code is gone and the link is opened in the same tab.
    I don’t get it …

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support Williams – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support8)

    Hi @spade

    I hope you’re well today!

    The “same window” issue might be related to the fact that Broken Link Checker marked this URL (“striked-out”) as for doing so, it needs to change (though it does that “on the fly”, it’s not a permanent change) HTML markup.

    On the “Settings -> Link Checker -> General” page you’ll find an option “Apply custom formatting to broken links” in “Link tweaks” section. Could you try disabling it, then clearing all caches on site and checking if it sorts out the target=_blank issue?

    If it doesn’t then it’s not related to Broken Link Checker. If it does, it’d be a bug in plugin which we’ll report to our developers.

    As for the YouTube link returning 403 – it’s a known issue. The problem here is that YouTube (and similar services) don’t really allow “automated traffic” like this and instead they require API connections. Otherwise an attempt to check the link is often detected the same way as requests from various “unauthorized” bots/crawlers and rejected by the target service.

    So when you “manually” visit such link it works and it isn’t really “broken” but YouTube detects that there was attempt to check it “automatically” and blocks such checks.

    Please take a look at the “Settings -> Link Checker -> Protocols & API” page and make sure that “YouTube API” checkbox there is checked and it might solve the issue and help detect those links correctly.

    Kind regards,
    Adam

    Thread Starter Frank Spade

    (@spade)

    Thanks, that helped to remove the irritating strike through. The problem with the link not opening in a new tab doesn’t seem to be related to this plugin, since the problem persists after deactivating this plugin.

    Plugin Support Patrick – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudevsupport12)

    Hi @spade

    Thank you for the update.

    I am happy to hear it is better now, about opening on a new tab it worked fine for me on the shared page, had you found the issue?

    Best Regards
    Patrick Freita

    Plugin Support Amin – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support2)

    Hello @spade ,

    We haven’t heard from you for a while now, so it looks like you don’t have any more questions for us.

    Feel free to re-open this ticket if needed.

    Kind regards
    Kasia

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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