Links status analytics

Link status analytics in Document360 is a built-in broken link checker that validates and monitors all internal, external, and media file links across your knowledge base. It helps you identify broken, redirected, and unknown links so you can fix them before they affect your readers or your search engine rankings. Validation can be run on a schedule, triggered manually, or performed at the individual article level.

Why use link status analytics

• Use it after a content restructure or article deletion to catch internal links that now point to missing pages.
• Use it to identify redirected URLs that should be updated to point directly to the correct destination.
• Use it to exclude placeholder or example links from validation reports so your broken link count stays accurate.

Understanding the link status overview

In the knowledge base portal, navigate to Analytics () and click Link status. The overview page shows all link data for the selected workspace and language, divided into two sections: Links status tiles and the Links list.

Links status tiles

The top tiles show link counts (Total links, Internal, External, Ignored) and current validation state:

When a reader encounters a broken link, they see a 404 error page. A broken media file is replaced by a broken image thumbnail in the article.

Links list

The links list shows all links used across the workspace, with the following fields:

Click Filter to narrow the list by Source, Visibility, Link type, and Status, then click Apply. You can also click any status tile directly to instantly filter the list by that type.

Click Export CSV to download the links list. The exported file includes: Article title, Media URL, Internal URL (true/false), URL, and Redirect URL.

How to run link validation

All three validation types are accessed from the Validation type dropdown on the Link status page.

Scheduled validation

Scheduled validation runs automatically every 7 days based on your plan tier. Select Scheduled from the Validation type dropdown to view the latest report. To review an older report, select a date from the Report date dropdown. Hover over the info () icon next to the dropdown to see the next scheduled validation date.

Manual validation

Manual validation runs an on-demand check of all project-level links.

1. From the Validation type dropdown, select Manual.
2. Click Validate links in the top-right corner.

3. In the confirmation prompt, review your remaining monthly manual validations and click Confirm.
4. Once complete, you receive an email confirmation. The updated report is available on the Link status overview page.

Article-level validation

Article-level validation checks links within a single article or category page and is unlimited.

1. Open the article or category page in the portal editor.
2. Click the More () icon in the top-right corner.
3. Click Analytics. The Article analytics panel appears.
4. Click Validate now.

To review past article-level validations, select Article level from the Validation type dropdown. The page is empty if no article-level validations have been run yet. To know more on article level analytics, read Article analytics.

How to manage links

Click Manage links on the Link status page to open the panel. Here you can search for a specific URL, check each link's type, dependency count (how many articles reference it), and status (Ignored or Included).

Ignore or include links

1. Select the checkbox for the links you want to manage.
2. Set the status to Ignored or Included from the Status dropdown, or click Ignore above the list.

Ignored links move to the Ignored tab and are excluded from future validation reports. To re-include a link, go to the Ignored tab, select it, and click Include ().

Click Export CSV above the links list to download the full Manage links list.

Limits and limitations

• Manual validation limit: Set by your plan and resets on the first day of each month. The usage bar on the Link status page shows how many validations remain. The limit applies to both internal and external links.
• Link analytics limit: Set by your plan. When exceeded, the Links analytics limit exceeded message replaces the usage bar. Only links within the allowed limit are validated. Links beyond the limit are excluded from scheduled, manual, and article-level validation. For example, with a 10,000-link limit and 10,500 links in your project, only the first 10,000 are validated.
• Scheduled validation reports: Updated once every 7 days. Previous reports are accessible via the Report date dropdown.
• Manual validation overwrite: Multiple validations run within 24 hours overwrite earlier reports for that day. Overwritten data cannot be recovered.

To increase your manual validation or link analytics limit, contact the Document360 support team.

Best practices

• Run a manual validation after major content updates. After deleting, moving, or renaming articles, trigger a manual validation to catch newly broken internal links before readers encounter them.
• Start with the Broken tile. Clicking it instantly filters the list to broken links only, so you can prioritize fixes without scrolling through working links.
• Ignore placeholder and example links. Add URLs like example.com to the Ignore list to keep your broken link count free of false positives.
• Export and filter by Internal URL before deleting an article. Check the Internal URL column in the export to find every article that links to the one you plan to remove, then update those links first.
• Monitor the validation usage bar. If you are nearing your monthly limit, use article-level validation for recently edited articles instead of running a full project validation.

FAQ