What is the "Broken Link Checker" extension and how does it work?

This extension is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool designed to help web developers locate all broken links on their web pages. Broken links can harm a website's search ranking, so this tool is valuable for maintaining a healthy site. Accessible via the toolbar button, the extension searches for all link elements on the page and adds them to a queue. Validation occurs in batches of 5 links at a time to increase efficiency, with a 10-second timeout for each one to prevent it from blocking the validation process. Links that time out receives a 504 error code and are added to the broken links section of the interface, where you can easily detect them using the "Inspect" button. This button forces the link to be placed in the viewport and highlights it in a green or red background depending on which list it appears on.

[Deprecated] Is it possible to increase the number of links validated simultaneously by the extension beyond the current limit of 5 links?

Currently, there is no option to adjust the number of links validated simultaneously beyond the default setting of 5 links. It's worth noting that all browsers have an inherent limit on the number of simultaneous network jobs to prevent network congestion. So increasing this number is not that helpful.

What's new in this version?

Please check the Logs section.

What is the use of the "All Frames" option in the inspection window?

When the option is active, the extension retrieves links from all frames in the current window. This feature is handy for websites with multiple frame elements used to prevent styling conflicts. Note that this option is optional and can get turned off to improve the evaluation process. The extension includes the original document's hostname in a single column to help identify the origin frame element of links. You can always use the "Inspect" button to bring the link into the viewport for further examination.

What is the meaning of the "Blank Frames" option?

You can activate the "Blank Frames" option to include links from dynamically-created frame elements in the inspection. By enabling this option, the extension will consider links within these types of frame elements.

How can I open the extension's interface inside the webpage instead of a separated window?

To open the extension UI within the webpage, right-click on the toolbar button and select "frame" mode instead of "window" mode. This option will cause the extension to embed itself as a frame within the current page rather than get opened in a separate window.

Is it a good idea to run this tool on multiple pages at once?

It is generally not recommended to run this tool on multiple pages at once. Most browsers have limitations on the number of simultaneous network jobs they can perform. Each instance of the tool adds five new jobs to the network stack, which can cause some jobs to time out if too many are initiated simultaneously. Therefore, it is best to run the tool on one page at a time to ensure accurate and reliable results.

Is it possible to use this extension to find broken text links (not presented with an Anchor element)?

Yes, it is possible to use this extension to find broken links even in the case of text links without an "a" element. There are two relevant options in the settings section of the extension: The "Top Links" and "Sub Links" checkboxes. The former option extracts text links from the top document, while the latter extracts links from all subrequests. Note that this process can slow down the detection of broken links since the extension needs to fetch the page content for each link. Therefore, it may take longer to find broken links in cases there are many text links on the pages.

How can I filter the links to only display those with the 5XX status code in the "Broken Link Checker" extension?

If you're using version 0.1.7 or later of the extension, you can use the new filtering section to display only the links with the 5XX status code. Uncheck all the boxes in the "Status Codes" section except for the "5XX Server Error" option, and the extension will only display the links with this code. However, keep in mind that if you uncheck all the boxes, the extension will hide all the links whether they are resolved or broken.