Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer
by Internet Archive · WordPress.org page
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer has 1,000+ active installs on WordPress.org and 18,767 downloads all time. We have tracked it since September 4, 2026; download trends appear after 30 days of data. The last update was on June 3, 2026, tested up to WordPress 7.0.4.
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer at a glance
Is Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer well maintained?
Features
The feature list from the plugin's own readme on WordPress.org, trimmed to the essentials.
- Automatically scans for outbound links in post content
- Checks the Wayback Machine for existing archives
- Creates new snapshots if no archive exists
- Redirects broken or missing links to archived versions
- Archives your own posts on updates
- Works on both new and existing content
- Helps maintain long-term content reliability and SEO
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer reviews and ratings
8 reviews on WordPress.org, with the most recent ones as their authors posted them.
8 reviews
- 5★
-
5
- 4★
-
0
- 3★
-
0
- 2★
-
2
- 1★
-
1
-
Great for continuous link checking but false positives and other issues
Since November 2025, I’ve tested the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer plugin against my custom command-line link checker. Here are my comments. Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer Positives Continuous link checking Standard WP administrator interface Negatives A high false positive rate means you need to manually verify every flagged link. For example, recently, I saw amazon.com flagged as a 404. Deal breaker. Automated replacements can unnecessarily replace links. To stop Link Fixer from redirecting to the Wayback Machine for amazon.com (and other good links), I needed to add a random query parameter (?t) to good links. Then I needed to exclude the original good link (that was flagged as a 404) and exclude the new ?t version on top of that (double work for every good link). Deal breaker. Poor interpretation of HTTP status codes and no way to tweak that. Deal breaker. Time sink from managing exclusions (no support for bulk action > exclude link) and doing workarounds for the false positives (see #2 above). High risk of replacing current content with outdated (sometimes totally ancient) archives. Poor visitor experience with unexpected link manipulation to Wayback Machine pages. At first, shocking and confusing, then annoying. Content quality degradation from linking to super old information instead of intelligently finding fresh and relevant pages. Real broken links (e.g., 404s) are not actually fixed in the HTML. So search bots will still see broken links (false sense of security). Dynamically replacing broken links does not help SEO. Google doesn’t guarantee crawling client-side rendering. Not geared towards human content editors. Shows all broken links across the entire site in one long list. No grouping by document or page. No context about which document contains which broken links. It’s not easy for content writers like me to navigate and fix links. The “Back to All Links” button is buggy. I expect to return to the main list of links. Instea
mark l chaves -
Plugin doesn't respect excludes
While this is a great plugin on paper, it sadly does not seem to respect its own "Exclude this link" settings. Additionally, it will sometimes report links that are fully online and functional as being down. Figured forcing "Exclude this link" would resolve this, or at least make it so I can exclude links from being redirected. But no. It does nothing.
Sidular -
Fantastic idea, but technical flaw
I love the idea of the plugin, but it has a major technical flaw. When activated, the blog's frontend tries to load scripts and/or resources from the wp-admin directory, and I think this is something a plugin shouldn't do. I protect wp-admin via htaccess as an additional measure against hackers, so my frontend threw some errors for ordinary users. I suggest fixing the plugin by moving frontend resources to wp-content. Otherwise a great project. Thank you Archive.org people for doing great work!
fraencko -
Very Bad Plugin
I had a very poor experience after installing the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer plugin. Immediately after activation, my website became completely inaccessible. I could not open any page on the frontend, and the site showed errors or failed to load entirely. The only way to regain access was to log into the WordPress control panel and uninstall the plugin manually. As long as this plugin remained active, the site was unusable. This behavior is extremely risky, especially for live or business websites, as it can cause sudden downtime without any clear warning or recovery option. There was no proper error message, no fallback mechanism, and no indication of what caused the conflict. For a plugin that modifies links automatically, this level of instability is unacceptable. Because of this experience, I would strongly advise other users to avoid installing this plugin on a live site or to test it only in a staging environment first. In its current state, it feels unreliable and potentially harmful. Overall, this plugin caused more problems than it solved, and I cannot recommend it.
savannah65 -
Working Great, check in on broken links occasionally
This has been working perfectly for me, and the only slight annoyance isn't the plugin's fault or even the Archive's fault. Some sites block the Archive from archiving them, so they appear to the link checker as broken links too. Give a quick look through broken links on your Dashboard's Posts section from time to time, as there might be a few you'll need to add to the Link Exclusions under Advanced Settings. The benefits far outweigh the effort it takes to monitor that yourself. :)
James Huff -
Super Idee, super Umsetzung
Marriage made in Heaven. Eigentlich nur verwunderlich, dass da nicht schon früher jemand draufgekommen ist.
Thomas Cloer
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer alternatives
Plugins that solve the same problem, ranked by how closely they overlap with Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer.
-
404 Solution 10,000+ installs · 4.9
Details
Automatically fix broken links by replacing them with archived versions from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
The full description, screenshots and every review live on the WordPress.org page.
Tags
- archive links
- broken links
- internet archive
- Wayback Machine
- Version
- 1.4.2
- Last updated
- Jun 3, 2026
- First published
- Oct 17, 2025
- Requires WordPress
- 6.4
- Tested up to
- 7.0.4
- Requires PHP
- 7.4
- Pricing
- Free on WordPress.org
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer FAQ
What does Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer do?
According to its WordPress.org readme, Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer offers Automatically scans for outbound links in post content, Checks the Wayback Machine for existing archives, Creates new snapshots if no archive exists, Redirects broken or missing links to archived versions and Archives your own posts on updates.
How many active installs does Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer have?
WordPress.org reports 1,000+ active installs for Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer as of September 7, 2026.
Is Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer still maintained?
Yes. The last release was on June 3, 2026 and it is tested up to WordPress 7.0.4.
Is Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer free?
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer is free to install from WordPress.org. Many plugins also sell a paid version or add-ons.