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Q
How do I check for broken links? Does the system have a link checker?
Is there a function that checks all URL links on your page to see if they are still active and not broken? Other programs I've used have this function and I cannot find it here.
Last Updated: Dec 06, 2012 | 1627 Views
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Answer
There is a Link Checker function in LibGuides & CampusGuides that will let you know of any broken links in certain boxes. Everyone has access to the Link Checker, not just admins. :)
Box types covered include:
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Links added to Rich Text boxes or through the Rich Text editor (the "Add/Edit Text" link below the box title but above your box content) in any other boxes are not checked).
View Your Link Checker Report
- Go to Tools > Link Checker.
- Choose to view broken links on your guides or all guides.
You can also filter by publication status: all, published, private, or unpublished.
Link Checker is run every weekend.
Please note that there may be some false returns in your list of broken links.
The Link Checker relies on the response from any given server at the moment when it's "pinged" for validity. There are a few possibilities as to why something might be listed as an invalid link, even though it is valid:
- At the time when our server pinged that URL, it was indeed unavailable. (Server was down at the time, or was too busy serving other requests, so the request was timed out.)
- That company/organization could have set up their server to refuse connections to any spiders, crawlers, etc. in order to save on bandwidth/resources.
- That company/organization incorrectly set up their server response codes, meaning that the code returned was not an accurate one.
Unfortunately, Springshare can't fix any of these possibilities.
For More Info / Source(s) (Links open in new window.)
Other Answers / Comments (6)
- Is there any reason why links within rich text boxes aren't checked? A lot of our content is within rich text boxes so this seems to be a major omission.
- The rich text boxes contain more data than the plain text boxes so there is more processing involved to parse the links.
- Is there an issue with the link checker? My current one still says October 7th.
- We've had some problems with our link checker over the past couple weeks. Our tech staff is working on it today and we hope to have it updated shortly.
- I either deleted or corrected broken links reported via the link checker, but they are still listed. I waited a day and checked again, and they are still reported as broken even though they are either delted or corrected. Is there something I'm missing about the link checker?
- The link checker is run once a week. Fortunately, it's run early on Saturday morning so you won't have long to wait. But let us know if the fixed or deleted links are still showing up tomorrow.
