Amazon link reported as Timeout

Hi @masterhealerwp

I hope you are doing well.

The shared link is indeed timing out:

https://monosnap.com/file/FLj1HamH70BZAb6vPnHymi41CXykmD

Is it working for you?

The plugin will do a cURL request from your server to verify the response, it is possible if the link is blocked on specific locations it will return the timeout if you confirm the link is working you can mark it as a false positive and ignore the report.

Best Regards
Patrick Freitas

Hello Patrick,

I’m not a technical guy and just beginning with WordPress and SEO, so I’m not sure I understand everything.

The http you shared is different than the one from my first message.

Also, the plugin reports all the links below being broken on the page
https://fauteuilrelaxation.net/fauteuil-matrix

My issue is that I can’t find any broken link on this page. Can you please go to this page and check by yourself?

Hopefully, your next answer will erase my sense of confusion with this plugin.

Thank you.

________________
`Broken Link Checker a trouvé 5 nouveaux liens cassés dans votre site.
Ici se trouve une liste des nouveaux liens cassés :

Texte du lien : Image
URL du lien : https://ir-fr.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=h70-21&language=fr_FR&l=li3&o…
Source : Fauteuil matrix et chaise matrix : 7 modèles pour des besoins différents

Texte du lien : Image
URL du lien : https://ir-fr.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=h70-21&language=fr_FR&l=li3&o…
Source : Fauteuil matrix et chaise matrix : 7 modèles pour des besoins différents

Texte du lien : Image
URL du lien : https://ir-fr.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=h70-21&language=fr_FR&l=li3&o…
Source : Fauteuil matrix et chaise matrix : 7 modèles pour des besoins différents

Texte du lien : Image
URL du lien : https://ir-fr.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=h70-21&language=fr_FR&l=li3&o…
Source : Fauteuil matrix et chaise matrix : 7 modèles pour des besoins différents

Texte du lien : Image
URL du lien : https://ir-fr.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=h70-21&language=fr_FR&l=li3&o…
Source : Fauteuil matrix et chaise matrix : 7 modèles pour des besoins différents

Vous pouvez voir tous les liens cassés ici :
https://fauteuilrelaxation.net/wp-admin/tools.php?page=view-broken-links`
_____________________________

Hi @masterhealerwp

I have also checked the link that you shared in your first post and it does time out for me to.

I didn’t do anything special – just clicked on it, trying to open in browser.

I don’t see that linke anywhere on this page https://fauteuilrelaxation.net/fauteuil-matrix and I actually don’t see other links that you shared there too.

However, these URLs seem to be coming form some sort of “ad system” which means that quite likely

– either I’m just not seeing them on site due to some rotation
– or they are there but what you see in Broken Link Checker link list is not the same link as on page but rather a redirect target;
– or in fact this isn’t even an actual URL but an URL of some ad inserting script which, when called out form the site, then returns actual link and “injects” it dynamically into the site

I suppose that last thing is probably the case here and Broken Link Checker may not be able to check this kind of links correctly due to restrictions on that ad system end.

Note please that Broken Link Checker does quite a simple check – it just attempts to “visit” given URL almost the same way as if you’d just click on that link. When it tries to visit such URL and it times out (and those are timing out) then that’s it – it reports it but it cannot really tell much more on “why” it times out or why the link looks different than it looks to be on site.

In this particular case, if these links are coming from some sort of an “ad system/plugin” and you know links on that page are working, it’d be best to just ignore that report as a “false positive”.

Kind regards,
Adam

Hi Adam

Please note that I truly appreciate your reply and support.

All the links on the page are the one you can see. Some of them are short links generated by the Amazon toolbar to do affiliation.

When you click those links on the page, they all work and lead you to the related Amazon product pages.

Still, the plugin Broken Link Checker reports links that do not exist as is on the page as broken.

Not sure if you can improve the plugin so that those type of links are better handled in future versions?

I clicked on “Ignore” for the plugin to stop sending me reminders about those seemingly broken links that do not even exist as is on the page. Not sure if this is the best thing to do.

Kind regards and thanks again for your top-notch reply,

Hi @masterhealerwp

Thank you for response!

Broken Link Checker can’t check links that are “dynamically injected” into already loaded site in browser (like links generated by some toolbar) because it does not and cannot “scan” the page directly in user browser.

The links that it does check are the links that must exist/be included in some way in content that is stored in the DB.

Depending on what you have set in “Look for Links In” section of “Settings -> Link Checker” settings, it will check various “parts” of the content but still, one way or another, such link must be there “somewhere”.

So I’ve visited the page in question again and this time looked into its source code. It seems I was right thinking that it may be some sort of “ad system”.

If you look into page source you will notice that these aren’t actually “links” as in “clickable links”. The are in fact URLs of a… lazy load “placeholder” images for external “clickable” images on page (that, I suppose, are coming from some Amazon ad widget).

Since this is “in content” apparently (stored in content) plugin can “see” these URLs but, apparently, target system is rejecting checks. This isn’t really something that’d be a bug in the plugin.

What you can do is go to “Which Links to Check” section of “Settigns -> Link Checker” and either disable the “HTML images” option there (it should not check them anymore but also should not check any other images) or you can add exceptions, like

“amazon-adsystem”

string in “Exclusion list” on that page.

Note that once that change is made you’ll need to flush cache on site/server, the go to “Advanced” tab in “Settings -> Link Checker” and use “Re-check all pages” option at the bottom to make plugin “re-discover” links (this time skipping those excluded).

Kind regards,
Adam

Adam,

I added the “amazon-adsystem” string as an exception in “Exclusion list” on the Settings page. Let’s see how it goes.

Thank you again for your top-notch help.

Hi @masterhealerwp

You are welcome,

Feel free to ping us if you have any additional questions.

Best Regards
Patrick Freitas