SmarterTrack Reporting Broken Link That is Not Broken - How to Clear

Idea shared by Jim Rosemary - 8/10/2026 at 10:52 PM

Completed

In our SmarterTrack knowledge base, two articles are throwing a broken link alert. Neither link is actually broken. How can I clear the alert?

In the "Broken Links" management page, I see a "Delete" button above the reported broken link details. Will clicking that delete the alert, or does it delete the entire KB article?

Jim Rosemary
New Tech Web, Inc.

8 Replies

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Eric McCarthy Replied

8/11/2026 at 7:52 AM

Employee Post

The Delete button deletes the KB article itself, not the alert — don't use it for this.

If you can provide some more detail about the false broken links that might make it easier for us to determine why they are being flagged. Does it state what type of broken link it is?

If you are seeing the link flagged as "insecure", that can be fixed by editing the link. The "insecure" link is using http instead of https when the given site has https available, so changing them to use https and then saving will rescan the article and those should go away.

If it is not an "insecure" type, then try re-running the scan. The scan wipes all existing alerts and re-flags only links that fail this time. On the Knowledge Base articles page, run "Scan for Broken Links" from the Actions menu.

If it is not of the type "insecure", and a rescan still shows the links as broken, then that means that your SmarterTrack cannot reach that site. You can check the BrokenLinkScan-KB log in the logs page to find a more clear reason why any link is being listed as broken.

Eric McCarthy

Lead Software Developer

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Jim Rosemary Replied

8/11/2026 at 5:11 PM

The two links – which appear in two unrelated KB articles in our system – are:

https://help.x.com/en/using-x/embed-x-feed – This goes directly to the page on X as expected, no issues. Not sure why this is being reported as a broken link.

https://www.whatsmydns.net – This site has a Cloudflare CAPTCHA in front of it, so maybe this is why SmarterStats thinks it's broken.

I've inspected the HTML to make sure there aren't any stray anchor tags. Both links are "https", so it's not an insecure link issue.

The "Broken Links" report just lists the link URL and the corresponding link text, which is the URL itself. No reason given.

I've re-run the "Rescan for All Broken Links" function several times and keep getting the same result.

If the issue with the second link is the Cloudflare check, how do I remove this KB article and link from the broken links list?

Jim Rosemary
New Tech Web, Inc.

Jim Rosemary Replied

8/11/2026 at 5:21 PM

Just checked the log files and found these records:

Exception: https://help.x.com/en/using-x/embed-x-feed
System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.
   at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
   at SmarterTrack.Data.HelperClasses.BrokenLinkScanner.checkLink(Dictionary`2& checkedLinks, StreamWriter sw, String url, Uri uri, Int32 redirects)

Exception: https://www.whatsmydns.net/
System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.
   at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
   at SmarterTrack.Data.HelperClasses.BrokenLinkScanner.checkLink(Dictionary`2& checkedLinks, StreamWriter sw, String url, Uri uri, Int32 redirects)

Might be that the remote server is simply throwing the wrong response code?

Jim Rosemary
New Tech Web, Inc.

Eric McCarthy Replied

8/13/2026 at 10:17 AM

Employee Post

It looks like the remote servers are throwing the 403. SmarterTrack sees that as it being broken, when if an actual user uses the link its not. The issue isn't that they show up, but that you cannot dismiss them once they are verified.

This is technically not a bug since it is doing what it was designed to. I am going to create a task for us to look into adding a feature to allow the dismissing of the broken link. I may also want to update the text so you have a better understanding as to why its in the list.

To make it so we can keep this post updated properly, I will go ahead and change this thread type from a problem thread to and idea thread. That way we can keep this post updated with the progress of this.

Eric McCarthy

Lead Software Developer

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Eric McCarthy Replied

9/3/2026 at 3:32 PM

Employee Post

This feature has been implemented in the latest release of SmarterTrack.

Eric McCarthy

Lead Software Developer

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Derek Curtis Replied

9/4/2026 at 10:54 AM

Employee Post

Just to put a bit of context on the new "Dismiss" feature.

If a website refuses access to a request when the link check goes out, SmarterTrack will display that as a broken link, even though it technically isn't. One change made is we added a new column for broken links that tells you what is being returned when the check happens, but the link is reported as "broken".

With the new Dismiss button, you can essentially tell SmarterTrack to NOT report links as being broken. So links that display a 403 can be dismissed, and won't show up in any future reports. Dismissed links will remain so until a new error is seen. For example, if that page is moved, deleted, etc. Then a new status is thrown when the link check occurs -- so the link is again reported as being broken.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com