One of the most frustrating experiences for any web user is to click on a link only to discover that it points towards a webpage that no longer exists. This is not good for the user and it reflects poorly on the site providing the link.

This is not necessarily the “fault” of the original site owner, since links embedded in older blog posts may have been valid when the post was originally published. Some time later, the target page of the link may come down for one reason or another. When you have hundreds or thousands of posts, it becomes impossible to check on the validity of all the outbound links.

To automate and expedite the process, consider the Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin. As its name implies, this plugin will check for broken links in all your posts and page, as well as in your blogroll, comments, and custom fields. If it discovers a broken link, it will inform you of this via the main WordPress admin dashboard.

For more information on Broken Link Checker, including the download link, check out the plugin directory on WordPress.org.