Fixing broken links and media

Scanfully finds broken links and media, but you fix them on your own site. For WordPress sites, the Content screen takes you straight to the editor of each page that uses a broken target, so you don’t have to search for it.

Scanfully never changes your content itself.

Fix a broken target

1. Open the site’s Content screen.
2. Click the target you want to fix. The details list every page that refers to it.
3. Click Edit page next to a page. It opens in a new tab, in the WordPress editor for that page.
4. Find the link or media file (the details show the link text or alt text to look for), and update it, replace it or remove it.
5. Save the page in WordPress.
6. Repeat for the other pages in the list.
7. Back on the Content screen, click Re-crawl to confirm. The target leaves the report once a crawl finds it working, or no longer finds it on your pages.

You can also start from the table: the pencil in the Referenced from column opens the first page that refers to the target.

How the edit link works

The edit link opens the page on your site with ?scanfully-edit=1 added. The Scanfully plugin on your site then sends you to the matching edit screen in the WordPress admin. This works for:

• posts, pages, products, events and other post types,
• the page you set as your posts page,
• category, tag and other taxonomy archives (the term’s edit screen),
• author archives (the user’s profile).

If you are not logged in to WordPress, you first see the WordPress login screen and go to the editor afterwards. WordPress decides what you may edit: if your user cannot edit that page, or the page has no edit screen (such as a date archive), you see the normal page instead.

The edit link needs the Scanfully plugin connected on the site. Without it, the link just opens the page.

When the editor does not contain the broken target

Some broken links and files are not part of the page content:

• A theme or plugin: scripts, stylesheets and images that a theme or plugin loads. Update the theme or plugin, or check its settings.
• Menus and widgets: links in a menu, footer or sidebar appear on many pages at once. Fix them under Appearance in WordPress, or in your site editor.
• An external provider: a CDN, embed or third-party script that moved or went offline. Update or remove the embed, or ask the provider.

A target that is used on almost every page, such as a link in your footer, is usually one of these.