GOMAX ULTIMATE 5.43.0 adds a built-in broken-link and broken-image checker: it inventories every link and image in your published content, verifies them in resumable batches so it never times out, shows you exactly which are dead and which posts they appear in, and lets you fix a bad URL everywhere at once — all from inside your own site, with the results stored in your own database. Dead links quietly hurt SEO and trust; now you can find and fix them without a third-party service.
Traditional broken-link checkers either run heavy background scans that slow your site or send your content to a cloud service. GOMAX does neither: it builds the link inventory from your database, checks links only when you (or an optional daily batch) ask, and caches results so re-checks are cheap.
Key takeaways
- Full inventory. It collects the links and images from your posts, pages and products into one list, noting whether each is internal or external.
- Resumable, cached checks. Links are verified in small batches (HEAD first, GET fallback, short timeouts). Call it repeatedly until everything's checked — no timeouts, no hammering.
- Actionable results. Broken links are reported with their HTTP status and the exact posts they appear in, so you know where to fix them.
- Bulk fix in one step. Replace a dead URL across all your content at once, with a dry-run preview first — or add a redirect.
- Self-hosted. The inventory and results live in your database; the only outbound requests are the link checks themselves.
Why broken links matter
Every dead link is a small tax on your site. For visitors it's a frustrating dead end; for search engines it's a signal that a page isn't well maintained, and broken outbound links can dilute the trust your content passes on. Broken images look even worse — they're visible failures on the page. The problem is that links rot silently: a partner renames a page, a product URL changes, an image gets deleted, and nothing tells you until a visitor hits it.
A regular check catches this early. The trick is doing it without bogging down your site or shipping your content to someone else's servers — which is exactly what a first-party checker is for.
How it works
The workflow is three simple steps:
- Collect. Build or refresh the inventory from your content. This is a fast, database-only pass that lists every link and image and which posts use it.
- Check. Verify the links in resumable batches. Each check uses a HEAD request with a GET fallback (many servers mishandle HEAD), a short timeout, and caches the result so it isn't re-checked until it's stale. Run it until nothing is left unchecked.
- Fix. Review the broken list — each entry shows the status code and the posts it appears in — then either bulk-replace the URL across your content (with a dry-run preview) or add a redirect for a moved internal page.
If you'd rather not think about it, enable the optional daily auto-check and GOMAX will keep the inventory fresh a small batch at a time. It's off by default, so no outbound traffic happens unless you ask for it.
Fixing at scale
The bulk replace is the time-saver. When a URL has moved, you don't have to open every post — replace it once and GOMAX updates every place it appears, after showing you exactly which posts will change. For moved internal pages, a redirect is often the cleaner fix, and the broken-link report points you there too.
Frequently asked questions
Will the checker slow down my website?
No. Building the inventory is a database-only operation, and link checking runs in small resumable batches that you trigger (or an optional daily batch). It doesn't run heavy scans on every page load, and results are cached so re-checks are cheap.
Does it send my content to an external service?
No. The inventory and all results are stored in your own database. The only outbound requests are the link checks themselves — GOMAX visiting each URL to see if it responds — and nothing about your site is sent to GOMAX or a vendor cloud.
Can it fix broken links, or only find them?
Both. It reports every broken link with the posts it appears in, and you can bulk-replace a URL across all your content in one step (with a dry-run preview first) or add a redirect for a moved internal page.
Does it check images too?
Yes. It inventories both links () and images (), so broken images are caught alongside dead links.
Why does checking happen in batches?
So it never times out on large sites. Each run verifies a capped number of links and remembers where it left off, so you call it repeatedly until everything's checked. Cached results mean subsequent runs only re-check links that have gone stale.
