Find and fix broken links site-wide with AI

Scan every post for dead links, see the full list first, then fix them in place without breaking your layout.

Difficulty Intermediate

Time ~15 min

Tools rest_api, run_wp_cli

Prerequisites

A connected site and a recent backup, since this edits published content. A backup plugin like Duplicator or your host one-click backup works.

The prompt

Scan my WordPress site for broken links and help me fix them. Work in two phases and do not change anything in phase one.

Phase 1, report only:
- Read the content of my published posts and pages and pull out every link.
- For each internal link, check whether the target page actually exists on my site and flag any that resolve to a 404.
- For each external link, check whether the URL is still live and flag anything that is dead, redirecting, or unreachable.
- Give me a table: the post, the broken link, why it is broken, and a suggested replacement.

Then stop and wait for me to confirm. I will take a backup before you make any edits.

Phase 2, after I approve:
- Fix only the links I approve, editing each one in place so the surrounding text and block markup stay exactly as they were.
- Do not rewrite whole paragraphs or posts. Change only the link.
- When you are done, list every edit you made so I can spot-check.

Already connected to WPVibe?

Skip the copy-paste. Just ask your AI for the “Find and fix broken links site-wide with AI” recipe, or describe the task, and WPVibe runs these steps on your own site.

Broken links pile up quietly. Pages you once linked to get deleted or renamed, external sites go offline, and a store you cited quietly shuts down. Every dead link chips away at reader trust and hands search engines a reason to rank you lower. Checking them by hand across hundreds of posts is exactly the chore that never reaches the top of the list, so it never gets done.

This recipe works in two phases. First your AI reads the content of your posts and pages, pulls out every link, checks each internal one against your own pages to catch 404s, and checks external links for liveness. It hands you the full list and changes nothing. Only after you approve does it repair the links, and it does that with a surgical in-place edit that leaves your block markup and the words around the link exactly as they were.

Paste the prompt and let it run the report first. Review that list and take a backup before you let it edit anything, since this changes published content. Internal 404s are caught precisely against your own pages. External links are checked live by your AI, so treat any borderline external result as worth a quick manual look before you approve the fix.

Outcome

A list of every broken link on your site and, after you approve, corrected links in place with your block markup intact.