Incorrect Outgoing Broken Links

Hello @akiraanastasia ,

I’m sorry this not working correctly for you.

Could you please share some of the links that are showing as broken?

kind regards,
Kasia

For example: This GTA game related article has outbound links about Epic Games launcher. They are working, but it shows Strikethrough?(broken) link on live article.

• This reply was modified 12 months ago by James Huff. Reason: link moved to proper field in OP

Hi @akiraanastasia,

I could notice a strikethrough for the “Epic Games Store” link text on the mentioned page.

Just to be sure, you are using the “Local” version of BLC and not the Cloud, right?

I could replicate the issue in the “Local” version. Are you sure you are getting a 404 error as its status? From checking your page, most probably it might be a 403 status error.

If there are 403 errors generated, it would mean that the BLC is getting blocked by the website, however, it shouldn’t be adding the strikethrough for such URLS.

I’m reporting the behaviour noticed to our BLC teams attention. For the time being, until our team improves the workflow regarding this, you can disable the “Apply custom formatting to broken links” option under Link Checker > Local > Settings > General > Link tweaks.

Kind Regards,

Nithin

Hi @wpmudevsupport11, yes, it is local version. Ok, we will temporary change that settings. Waiting for the update.

Hi @akiraanastasia

I’m sorry if we caused some confusion in previous response but there is no bug in this behavior. Let me explain:

1. If the “Link tweaks” option is set, plugin will strikethrough every link that it considers broken; This is a setting that is optional and you can disable it.

Note: if you have disabled it and those links are still marked with “strikethrough”, it suggests that the page got cached this way so clearing cache should help.

2. A link is considered “broken” if it returns HTTP status other than standard “200 OK” or one of accepted redirects (such as e.g. 301).

3. So if a given link returns “403” status (which means “Forbidden”), it is considered broken, thus will be marked/striked-through (if “Link tweaks” option is enabled).

The real question here is then “why those links are marked as broken even though they are working” and “why they were not marked as broken before”?

The “403” status (and similar error statuses) are the key here. It simply means that the request from broken link checker was blocked/rejected and that usually happens if the target (so the site/server at that checked link) starts to identify those checks as possibly “bots” or “automated/unauthorized crawling”. It may also be e.g. related to geolocation-based access control.

But usually, it’s a matter of a some sort of firewall rules on the target site/server that, at some point, implemented more “strict” rules for traffic control and “decided” to turn away those requests.

I’m afraid solution here is to consider disabling the “Link Tweaks” option and possibly mark those links – that you know are working despite being reported as broken – in plugin to be ignored.

Kind regards,
Adam

If its about firewall, which IPs we have to whitelist?

(For moderator, i don’t know why simple replies need to moderate. Can you disable it?)

• This reply was modified 11 months, 4 weeks ago by akiraanastasia.

Hi @akiraanastasia

I hope you are doing well today!

You can find below the User Agent and the IPs which should be allowed for Broken Link Checker.

https://wpmudev.com/docs/wpmu-dev-plugins/broken-link-checker/#broken-link-checker-user-agent
https://wpmudev.com/docs/wpmu-dev-plugins/broken-link-checker/#broken-link-checker-ip

Kind regards,
Zafer

Hi @akiraanastasia

We didn’t hear back from you for a while already and the issue is explained so I’m marking this as resolved.

But if you have any follow-up questions or still need assistance, please feel free to let us know.

Kind regards,
Adam