Title: Filter 403 Forbidden errors
Last modified: January 7, 2026

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# Filter 403 Forbidden errors

 *  Resolved [John-Pierre Cornelissen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/)
 * (@jpnl)
 * [5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/)
 * Can there please be a fix, a setting or filter to not report “403 Forbidden errors”
   as broken links (for local)?
 * There are more and more websites that block your link checks and your plugin 
   reports them all as broken while they actually work. I understand that the plugin
   can’t tell if a link is broken or not when the link checker is being blocked,
   but in that case it shouldn’t be reported as broken.
 * I know I can mark them as ‘not broken’, but for some reason, when the same link
   is checked again, it is also reported as broken again.
 * Instead I suggest:
    - Best to fix the issue by better mimicking a real browser
    - Have a setting to filter ‘broken’ link reports by server status codes and 
      to exclude them from the email reports.
 * I have searched the support posts and this is being reported multiple times over
   the past few years. Can you please do something about it? Thanks!
 *     ```wp-block-code
       Log: === HTTP code: 403 === Response headersHTTP/1.1 403 ForbiddenCache-Control: no-store, must-revalidate, no-cachePragma: no-cacheConnection: closeContent-Type: text/htmlContent-Length: 244X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGINX-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=blockX-Content-Type-Options: nosniff Request headersGET /this-is-the-slug HTTP/1.1Host: externaldomain.nlUser-Agent: WPMU DEV Broken Link Checker Local EngineAccept: /Accept-Encoding: deflate, gzip, brReferer: https://www.mydomain.nlConnection: closeRange: bytes=0-2048 Response HTMLRequest RejectedThe requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator.Your support ID is: <5782400494749519032>
       ```
   

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Plugin Support [Jair – WPMU DEV Support](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wpmudevsupport15/)
 * (@wpmudevsupport15)
 * [5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18778460)
 * Hello [@jpnl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. I can see something like that can improve the plugin,
   as sometimes one would be fine by not receiving notifications from broken links
   that happen because a 403: forbidden error.
 * I’m sharing this suggestion to our development team. Take note that these things
   can take time to investigate and implement, so I don’t have an ETA of when this
   feature may be deployed in the future.
 * Kind regards,
   Jair.
 *  Thread Starter [John-Pierre Cornelissen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/)
 * (@jpnl)
 * [5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18778845)
 * Thanks. I can tell it takes a long time. I found a ticket about is from 3 years
   ago.
    -  This reply was modified 5 months ago by [John-Pierre Cornelissen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/).
 *  [peteskitoo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peteskitoo/)
 * (@peteskitoo)
 * [5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18779288)
 * I have a similar issue. The URL being checked works ok but obviously didn’t like
   the robotic activity. The other error I seem to get is 415, Unsupported Media
   Type, as well as 403. I was hoping clicking Dismiss or Not Broken would take 
   a URL off of this list of ones to check in the future. Maybe into a list that
   I can manually check later.
 *  Plugin Support [Nithin – WPMU DEV Support](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wpmudevsupport11/)
 * (@wpmudevsupport11)
 * [4 months, 3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18782436)
 * Hi [@jpnl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/),
 * I would like to update that our team will be improving the current down the roadmap.
   At the moment, we don’t have an exact ETA, but we hope it will be soon.
 * [@peteskitoo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peteskitoo/) You can check 
   our doc for what each status code error would mean:
   [https://wpmudev.com/docs/wpmu-dev-plugins/broken-link-checker/#broken-link-status-codes](https://wpmudev.com/docs/wpmu-dev-plugins/broken-link-checker/#broken-link-status-codes)
 * If you need any further assistance, we would highly recommend that you open a
   new thread. Please use the following URL to open a new thread:
 * [https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/broken-link-checker/#new-topic-0](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/broken-link-checker/#new-topic-0)
 * Regards,
 * NIthin
 *  Thread Starter [John-Pierre Cornelissen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/)
 * (@jpnl)
 * [4 months, 3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18782622)
 * Thanks Nithin,
 * I just looked at the ‘how to fix’ for the 403 error. It says
 * > If you can access the page please make sure to allow BLC User Agent and BLC
   > IP addresses to scan the page. See the Troubleshooting & Notes chapter below.
 * Unfortunately that only works if you have control over the target site. You can’t
   do that for 403 links that point to social media sites like Facebook, or stock
   sites like Pexels.
 * Ideally, it does a re-check with another user agent and/or from a different IP
   address. If that still doesn’t work, then it can be reported a broken. If a user
   then marks the link as not broken, it shouldn’t report it again until the status
   code has changed to something else.
   ThanksJP
    -  This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by [John-Pierre Cornelissen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpnl/).
 *  [sallijane](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sallijane/)
 * (@sallijane)
 * [4 months, 3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18783398)
 * I’d be willing to manually check my many 403 errors if I was assured that if 
   I mark the link to be dismissed or as not broken, then it would stay dismissed
   for an extended period of time, not reappear in the next scan.
    -  This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by [sallijane](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sallijane/).
 *  [Kris – WPMU DEV Support](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wpmudevsupport13/)
 * (@wpmudevsupport13)
 * [4 months, 1 week ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18798143)
 * Hi everyone
 * As said above, this was already forwarded to our developers for future improvement,
   and I am marking this thread as resolved, but if you have any additional questions,
   feel free to let us know.
 * Kind Regards,
   Kris

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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## Tags

 * [broken link](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/broken-link/)
 * [dismiss](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/dismiss/)

 * 9 replies
 * 6 participants
 * Last reply from: [Kris – WPMU DEV Support](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wpmudevsupport13/)
 * Last activity: [4 months, 1 week ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/filter-403-forbidden-errors/#post-18798143)
 * Status: resolved